The feat was attributed to hard work, determination and commitment exhibited by management and staff, which also saw the NHIA revenue level climbing from 84 percent in June 2018 to 97 per cent by June this year.

Mr Abass Suleymana, The Upper West Regional Director of NHIA, catalogued the achievement during a press briefing in Wa and said the success was stirred by myriad of innovations introduced by the Authority including the mobile renewal system.

"Our aim is to attain universal coverage and what it means is that, everybody in the region will have National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) card and by extension have access to healthcare," he said.

He explained that the era where people used to queue for renewal of cards was a thing of the past as NHIS card holders could now sit in the comfort in their homes and conveniently register their cards without visiting NHIS office.

"The mobile renewal has taken away the queues they use to have and now they are concentrating on new members, targeting the people at market to market and community to community to ensuring every individual have NHIS card," he added.

Mr Suleymana added that registration of the poor and vulnerable groups was evident to show that the NHIS contributed and continued to contribute immensely to access to health.

Despite the progress, he said the Scheme faced some internal and external challenges such as human resource as some facilities were experiencing staff shortages.

However, NHIA was leaving no stone unturned to guarantee financial sustainability through introduction of innovative and efficiency measures such as digitizing membership registrations and renewals, rolling out e-claims nationwide, and strengthening quality assurance and financial auditing for improved accountability.