NHIA needs more public support-Mensah

THE National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) has called for public support in its operations to ensure that the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) introduced to provide equitable health care for the people is sustained.
It said without preventing others from scrutinising the activities of the authority, it would serve a good cause if efforts were made to get to the right information for public consumption.
The call was made by the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the NHIA, Mr Sylvester Mensah, at press conference organised by the authority to react to some media reports on the operations of the scheme.
An Accra-based newspaper has, since January 26, 2010, come out with a series of allegations against the NHIA. Among them are allegations of reckless use of public funds to purchase vehicles, a trip to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) by the CEO and other officials and the hiring of a duty post accommodation for the CEO.
Mr Mensah said it would have been better if the paper had found it necessary to get his side of the story before going public, adding that nothing had been done without the approval of the NHIA board.
He stressed that the process for getting many of the things that the paper accused him of began before he assumed office.
He gave the assurance that the NHIA would ensure that the right things were done to protect the taxpayer’s money and stressed that the authority was working hard to reduce its budget for the year.
He said the authority had uncovered some serious leakage in the operations of some of the schemes through some clinical auditing it had embarked on and stressed that all bad nuts in the system would be exposed and dealt with according to the law.
In a statement which was read earlier, the acting Deputy Director of Public Affairs, Mr Eric Ametor-Quarmyne, said all the 145 schemes in the country had started recording tremendous changes in both their operational and financial management.
He explained the circumstances under which a number of vehicles had been purchased for use by officials of both the NHIA and the various schemes, adding that the arrangement had rather relieved the authority of a huge financial burden, compared to the general practice in the civil and public services.
Mr Ametor-Quarmyne touched on the trip to the UAE by the CEO of the NHIA and other high-ranking public officials, including Members of Parliament, NHIA board members and officials of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), and said the delegation had attended an important international health conference which would benefit the country.