THE Asutifi District Health Insurance Scheme (DHIS) in the Brong Ahafo Region registered new members and renewed expired cards of existing ones, all totalling 4,203, during a special promotional programme organised recently by the public relations (PR) department of the scheme in the area.
The special exercise, which took place simultaneously at Nkaseim, Acherensua, Gambia and Kenyase on November 16 and 17, 2010, generated a total of GH¢6,124 premium paid for the new and old registrants.
At Nkaseim, 1,178 members were registered while Acherensua, Gambia and Kenyase registered 1,074, 977 and 974, respectively.
Before the commencement of the two-day special exercise, the PR section had mounted a two-week awareness creation on the local FM radio stations, visited churches, mosques and institutions in the district to educate the people on the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) in general and the uniqueness of the promotional exercise in particular.
The Public Relations Officer (PRO) of the DHIS, Mr Owusu Berchie, disclosed this to the Daily Graphic at Hwediem.
He stated that his outfit decided to visit some of the communities at dawn in the sensitisation efforts through the use of public address systems which, he said, was a very good strategy to reach predominantly farming communities.
Touching on the renewals, Mr Berchie said all expired cards were replaced irrespective of the expiry date while in the case of the new ones, the registrants were given a one month waiting period instead of the previous three months to obtain their national identification (ID) cards.
According to the PRO, while waiting for their permanent cards, the newly roped in members were issued with temporary cards to enable them to attend health facilities whenever they fell sick.
He added: “With all these packages, the renewal and premium fees remained the same to enable people who wish to register to get on board the scheme.”
Mr Berchie said even though the scheme had field agents working in the various communities for the special programme, its officials were deployed to the communities to sensitise and carry out the registration alongside the renewals.
He emphasised that hitherto the people felt reluctant to join the scheme or renew their cards but this time round, the involvement of the scheme staff had whipped up their enthusiasm to get on board.
The PRO also disclosed that as of October, this year, a total of 97,592 people, made up of 42,391 males and 55,201 females out of the district’s population of approximately 120,000, had registered with the scheme.
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