Family Worship Centre to register needy with NHIS
The Family Worship Centre of the Christ Apostolic Church International in Sunyani has begun a programme to register street children, truck and wheelbarrow pushers and the needy in the Sunyani Municipality with the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS).
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The church has a health outreach team which embarks on health screening and education from time to time and refers people with health problems to the various health institutions for treatment.
However, it becomes very difficult for people who are referred to hospitals to pay for the cost of their treatment, since they are usually not registered members of the NHIS.
According to the Pastor in charge of the church, Pastor Emmanuel Manu, in such situations the church had to provide financial assistance to cover the cost of treatment of those people who had been referred by the health outreach team.
“That is why we have taken it upon ourselves to ensure that all street children and their parents, porters, as well as wheelbarrow and truck pushers, are registered with the NHIS to enable them to access free health service when the need arises,” he said.
Registration
The registration exercise, which began yesterday, saw members of the church moving through Bosoma Market in Sunyani to pick up the children to the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) office to be registered.
So far 30 street children, head porters, as well as wheelbarrow and truck pushers, have been registered while efforts are being made to convince others to accept to be registered.
“It is interesting that some of the beneficiaries do not know about the existence of the scheme and demanded that we give them financial rewards before they accept to be registered,” Pastor Manu said.
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Education
Pastor Manu said even though the Family Worship Centre, which conducts its service in English and French, was established about four months ago it had plans to establish an educational facility near the Bosoma Market to provide education for porters.
It also intends to put up a health post near the market to bring healthcare services near the porters and other needy people who have made the market their place of abode.
A management member of the church, Mr Isaac Owusu, called on the NHIA to extend its education about the scheme to cover such needy people to enable them to see the need to register to be part of the scheme.