Register children independently under NHIS

Mrs Cecilia Boateng-Mensah, Chief Executive Officer of Unique Child Academy, a private daycare/primary school, has advocated a system under the National Health Insurance Scheme that would cater for the registration of children, independent of their parents or guardians. She also urged government to take a second look at the National Health Insurance regulation with regard to the exemption from payment of contribution on the basis of age. Mrs Boateng Mensah, who made the suggestion at the Unique Child Academy's end of year get-together at Haatso in Accra at the weekend, said the provisions under the Scheme did not act as safety-net for children whose parents were not registered, thereby denying them access to healthcare. She said: "There must be a system to automatically capture children and register them at no cost, to ensure that the child is given an unconditional access to healthcare". NHIS officials, she said could take advantage of the schools' health centres among others to ensure that no child was left out. "Children are God-given assets and if well nurtured, can be a future security to guarantee a lifetime support. The way children are prepared to face challenges of the future will determine whether society will enjoy the comfort of old age and its accompanied security", she emphasized. Mrs Boateng-Mensah noted that ill-prepared children would become ill prepared adults tomorrow, a situation which would not auger well for the country's progress. She said it was rather unfortunate that due to economic pressures, parents were unconsciously failing their God-given responsibility to constructively develop children but rather lavished them with gifts, expensive gadgets, clothes and money. "This development has the tendency to corrupt children," she noted. Mrs Boateng-Mensah commended government on the introduction of the Capitation Grant and the Schools Feeding Programme, adding that the interventions had brought a lot of relief to many parents. Ms Annie Adsorb, speaking on behalf of parents of the Academy, commended management and staff of the Unique Child Academy for its warm attitude towards the children under their care. She lauded the Academy's neatness, saying, "It will inculcate in the children the need to keep personal hygiene and healthy surroundings as they grow up."