Management of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) has threatened to sack employees who are playing politics with the National Health Insurance Scheme.
The measure is adopted to bring sanity into the operations of the NHIS to ensure that beneficiaries enjoyed quality healthcare delivery no matter their political, religious and ethnic affiliation.
Mr Anthony Gingong, Deputy Director of the NHIA in charge of Operations, issued the threat in Tamale on Tuesday during the sod-cutting for the construction of a GH¢660 thousand office accommodation for its Northern Region Office.
Mr Gingong said; “We have been receiving reports of our employees playing politics with the National Health Insurance Scheme to an extent that some even tell patients that they voted wrongly in 2008. We would no longer countenance this and who ever is found playing politics would be immediately sacked.”
He said the NHIA was under the Ministry of Health, which is a public institution and that employees who flouted the public service act would be dealt with accordingly so as to bring sanity into the programme.
He said the NHIA was waiting for Parliament to pass an Act that would streamline the operations of the scheme especially on the issue of progression to ensure that promotions were done.
Mr Gingong explained that the current system was not giving room for promotions and that if the law was passed such problems would be addressed.
He gave the assurance that all districts would soon get their mutual health insurance offices to enhance their operations and advised all employees to stay away form politics so that it would not defeat the purpose for which the NHIS was set up in 2004.
Mr Moses Bukari Mabengba, Northern Regional Minister, said no political party in the country could lay claim to the establishment of the NHIS and asked politicians to stop playing politics with it “since health issues do not wear political caps”.
He said it was the Catholic Church, which started the scheme on pilot basis at Nkoranza and Damongo, which the NDC under President Rawlings adopted and the NPP came to make it national.
He said as we commend the NPP for making it national we must also be commended for improving on it saying, “We would work harder to ensure that the scheme come to stay to benefit everybody.
He appealed to the contractor not to do any shoddy work but should work faster to complete the project on the eight month period schedule.