The Upper West Regional office of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) is targeting to achieve Universal Health Coverage (UHC) by end of December 2021.

Currently, active membership of the health insurance scheme stands at 682,622 members representing 77 per cent of the total population in the region.

Mr Samuel Lobber, the Regional Manager of the NHIA who gave the target during a press briefing in Wa on Thursday stressed the commitment and determination of both staff and management to hit the minimum 80 per cent entry requirement for the UHC by the end of the year.

He noted that as a region, they had done well so far from January to July 2021, as they were currently at 95 per cent of their annual target, adding that this was impressive because, at the end of March 2021, they were at 62 per cent of the target.

Mr Lobber attributed the feat to the implementation of the strategies they took during their last meeting, noting that Nadowli-Kaleo District was the worse performed district during the first quarter of 2021 but had been able to achieve 105.64 per cent of the target due to the strategies taken at the last meeting.

He said Wa West District performed impressively well topping the district performance chart with 140.22 per cent even though it was the only district in the region without an official vehicle.

The Regional Manager of the NHIA noted, however, that the 87.65 per cent performance recorded by Wa Municipal office was something to worry about as it would contribute to pulling them down from their target if nothing was done to increase the performance.

Mr Lobber noted that the 64.71 per cent recorded by Nandom Municipal office was understandable because much of their mobile renewals still went into Lawra Municipal office adding that even with that the performance could still challenge many of the districts across the country.

With the coverage of the population per district, he said Jirapa Municipality was at 58 per cent, Lawra Municipality 112 per cent, Nadowli-Kaleo District 79 per cent, Nandom Municipality 54 per cent, Sissala East Municipality 73 per cent, Sissala West District 106 per cent, Wa East District 64 per cent, Wa Municipality 93 per cent, and Wa West District 71 per cent of their population.

"Colleagues, if together we roll out similar strategies that worked for us in the second quarter, we will certainly reach UHC even before the end of the year", he said.

Mr Lobber noted that with the new resources released to them they should be able to achieve their target if they again came up with new strategies appropriate to the season.