NHIS registration for female porters in Ashanti Region
The Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection has freely registered 2,000 female porters, locally known as ‘Kayayei’, and 500 elderly people with the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) at Asokore Mampong in the Ashanti Region.
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Speaking at the registration centre, the Minister for Gender, Children and Social Protection, Nana Oye Lithur, said the ministry began its first NHIS registration for ‘kayayei’ in December last year, and about 1,000 ‘kayayei’ from Mallam Atta and Agblogbloshie markets in Accra were registered with the NHIS for free to enable them to access basic healthcare service. She said the government believed that expanding access to quality healthcare was a basic human right and should be seen as a critical human resource development, stressing that, “A healthy nation is a wealthy nation.”
According to her, the government will, therefore, ensure that all persons in society have equal access to essential healthcare service, especially the vulnerable.
Social protection
Nana Lithur added that as part of the social protection measures, the ministry recognised that women and girls who used the market centres as their home sometimes suffered physical, sexual and emotional abuses and for that reason, the ministry, in collaboration with the UNFPA, had established two response centres for survivors of gender-based violence in two selected markets in Accra.
The centres are to increase survivor safety and perpetrator accountability, and also coordinate and link core services, including immediate to long-term healthcare services, access to police, legal and counselling services.
Another programme introduced by the government under the ministry, she observed, was the pre-employment training skills for ‘kayayei’ and other vulnerable groups.
The programme aims at offering the ‘kayayei’ with relevant skills training to enable them to earn a living employment.
The programme will again offer medium and long-term social, as well as economic-based benefits to enhance the livelihoods of ‘kayayei’ and their families.
