Pensioners commend executive for good initiatives
Members of the National Pensioners Association (NPA) attending a three-day regional meeting for briefing on new policy implementation, have lauded the current national executive of the association for their innovation in bringing relief to pensioners in the country.
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The members who distinctively pointed at the untiring efforts of Mr Edward Ameyibor for his ingenuity and selfless devotion to duty, urged him to ignore unfounded criticisms by people seeking to divert the course of progress of the Association, and concentrate on bringing good things to the Association.
The pensioners, who opened registration to admit new and willing retirees, are undergoing training on a new mutual health scheme being introduced by the association in collaboration with the Liberty Mutual Health.
Dubbed Pensioners Medical Service (PMS), the new health scheme is an additional one initiated by the pensioners themselves, to augment the current National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), which is limited in services, especially with ageing related diseases.
The PMS which would start full operation by February 2015, would give pensioners the opportunity to access some medical needs, such as Blood Pressure (BP) related diseases, chemistry tests including lipid profile, Lever Function Test, Uric Acid test, Renal Function Test, and Prostrate Surface Antigen (PSA) test.
Other tests include diabetes type two, while additional areas for examination would be physical body examination which would include abdominal, heart, respiratory, nervous system and the breast.
Besides, the additional scheme would take care of other areas such as physiotherapy, chemography scans including MRI, laboratory tests, hospital accommodation and ambulance services.
The initiative, like any other mutual health scheme, is to raise a pool of funds where the strong support the weak and the weak reciprocate for their common good.
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Mr Baba Yarfo, a retired educationist and immediate past headmaster of the Bongo Senior High, commended the initiators of the programme, and said it would bring a big relief to pensioners because of the hope in the new scheme.
He wondered the number of pensioners who could afford to treat ageing-related diseases such as Prostrate, breast cancer, kidney and stroke, and said the package was an incentive geared towards a big relief for pensioners.
He observed that ageing brought in its wake unfriendly complications that weakened pensioners and old people, and indicated that the continuous attacks from diseases are attributable to the unavailability of funds for old people to seek specialists attention, hence the early deaths recorded in older people.
The General Secretary of the Association, Mr Ameyibor, earlier explained that every beneficiary would be entitled to GH¢4000 worth of health services annually and said “in exchange we are asking our members to contribute GH¢4.00 only or GH¢48 per year for our common good and health”.
He indicated that the association has a membership of about 4,000 in the Northern Region, 3,800 in the Upper East Region, and 3,500 in the Upper West Region, and said the association is in the Upper East Region to train some of its members to do registration, to enrol members to qualify for new identification cards to enable them access health services under the PMS when it takes off.
The General Secretary said the association would carefully select health facilities that are pensioner-friendly, and indicated that “one important condition is that the health providers must show respect to the elderly persons and show respect to their dignity”