NHIA CEO condemns seizure of NHIS offices (August 19, 2009)

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THE acting Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA), Mr Sylvester Mensah has condemned the alleged seizure of National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) offices by some individuals in parts of the country.
He has ,therefore, called on the security agencies to arrest and prosecute such individuals or groups to ensure order in the operations of the schemes.
Mr Mensah was answering questions at a news conference organised by the NHIA in Accra yesterday to enable him brief journalists on some developments regarding the implementation of the NHIS at the provider and scheme levels.
He said no individual had the right to move to any office of a scheme, stressing that people with such intentions should refrain from that negative act.
Mr Mensah denied media reports of dismissal of some staff of the NHIS since he assumed office as the CEO.
He was, however, quick to add that anybody found to be involved in fraudulent deals or not doing the right thing would be dealt with .
The NHIA CEO explained that the authority was mandated by section 68 of Act 650 of 2003 to assure the provision of good quality service to members of the NHIS.
He reiterated that there were 145 District Mutual Health Insurance Schemes (DMHIS) with a total of 13.7 million registered members nation-wide, which represented 67 per cent of the population of Ghana.
Mr Mensah said out of that figure, 12.5 million people were card bearing members which also represented 88.1 per cent of the number of people who had registered.
According to him, the NHIA had given accreditation to about 4,000 health care providers to provide health care services to the insured members.
On payment of claims, Mr Mensah said the figures kept on increasing every year.
He stated that in 2006, an amount of GH¢43.5 million was paid, in 2007, GHc92.8 million was paid; in 2008; GH¢151.16 million while in the first half of 2009, a total of GH¢160.3 million was paid all as claims.

*Mr Sylvester Mensah, the CEO of NHIA