Nyani Tindang Witches Camp inmates to be registered with NHIS
The Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection is to register 410 alleged witches and wizards in the Northern Region onto the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) by September this year.
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The sector Minister, Nana Oye Lithur, made this known when she visited the inmates of the Nyani Tindang Witches Camp in the Yendi Municipality in the Northern Region.
The camp is home to 300 females and 110 males.
The minister said the free NHIS registration exercise was part of the humanitarian project the ministry was implementing under the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty Programme (LEAP).
Budgetary allocation
Nana Oye stated that the government had allocated GH¢38 million for the LEAP project this year.
According to her, the ministry had been giving grants to 90,000 households in the country to assist 36,000 people under the LEAP programme every two months.
So far, she said, about 6,006 households in the Northern and Upper East regions had been rolled onto the LEAP programme and currently, 12,206 people in the Northern Region were benefiting from the LEAP programme, indicating that about 9,184 new people were being added to the programme.
Nana Oye said 10 districts in both the Northern and Upper East regions, including the Yendi Municipal Assembly and the Mion District in the Northern Region, were going to benefit from the programme.
She disclosed that the government had increased the LEAP grant from GH¢24 per month to GH¢32, and that the new rates would take effect from September this year.
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The increment, Nana Oye Lithur explained, was one way by which the government was tackling poverty especially among the vulnerable people in society.
Prison inmates
She added that the ministry would register all prison and leprosarium inmates across the country with the NHIS.
That, she said, would enable them to access free health care and also lessen the financial burdens on their caretakers.
Donation
The minister also donated some items including bags of rice, bathroom slippers, toiletries, cooking oil, sugar, soaps, and clothes to the Nyani Tindang Witches Camp.