NHIS Coverage for Prisoners Will Be Improved – Nana Addo

President Akufo-Addo has announced that government is investing resources to improve the current health conditions of prisoners in the country.

Speaking at a graduation parade at the Ghana prisons service, the President indicated that the National Health Insurance scheme will be expanded to cover inmates in all prisons in the country.

He said it was time to revive the health insurance package for prison inmates since the program stalled since the introduction in 2015.

According to him, the move aims at improving the current state of health as well as reducing the ‘high’ expenditure government incurs from health bills of prisoners.

“Towards the health and Government has relaunched the free National Health Insurance Scheme registration exercise in our prisons. This project, which began in 2015 and was stalled after that, has the singular aim to ensure that all inmates are registered under the scheme to make access to affordable healthcare. This will help reduce the prisons service expenditure significantly on hospital bills on inmates.”

The President further revealed that government’s plans are far advanced  to ensure an increase in the number of medical personnel assigned to prisons in the country adding that  “prisons infirmaries will be upgraded and adequately resourced.”

NHIS has run out of funds – CEO

Dr. Samuel Yaw Annor, the Chief Executive Officer of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) in June this year revealed the National health Insurance scheme had run out of funds to operate.

Dr. Annor disclosed this during the Northern Regional forum on how to solve NHIS challenges in the country, adding that the poor performance of the scheme had human security threat that needed to be addressed.

He appealed to the government to increase the VAT component of the NHIS from 2.5 percent to at least 3.5 percent so that the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) would have the needed funds to manage the scheme properly.

Source: Citinewsroom