The National Identification Authority (NIA) and National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) have held a joint workshop for its members at Windy Lodge Hotel, Winneba for the enrollment of children aged between six (6) and ten (10) into their system.
The collaboration is expected to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of the two bodies in improving equitable access to comprehensive quality health services and a common identity by linking the national identity cards which are the Ghana Card and the Nation Health Insurance Card respectively.
Participants were drawn from 11 NHIS/NIA regional offices across the country and were taken through the framework governing the exercise.
The move is aimed at maintaining the integrity of data to ensure a quality database for the collaborative bodies.
Addressing the media Prof. Ken Attafuah, the Executive Secretary of the NIA intimated that the exercise would be carried out in schools across the country for an effective outcome.
He asserted that the registration is solely dedicated to children from the ages of six (6) to 14 who are not yet 15 years old.
According to him, this would reduce the need to procure more membership cards and associated operational cost which would save the country a sum of thirty million (30,000,000) USD annually and also having a Smart Biometric Identity Card would complete the switch to serve a dual purpose of identification and verification.
Professor Attafuah observed that “Parents will have to go to registration centers at their children’s schools with their birth certificates or passports, and the exercise is free,” he added.
However, if a child does not have any of the two mentioned requirements, the parents or guardians will have to go to the school and help the NIA register the child into the system as a guarantor.
“This is not a mass registration, unlike what we did some years ago. This is not the time for the replacement of cards for people to drop in for that. No, we are not going to offer any other registration service at the schools. Even if you are a teacher in the school where the exercise is going on, you will not be allowed to register during this exercise,” he stated.
The registration will be held in about one hundred and seventy (170) districts across the country and take place in all districts with National Health Insurance Authority offices.
He went on to caution the general public not to play politics with the exercise which will begin on June 10, 2024.
Source:dailyghanianguide
