The Wa West District Assembly has hooked 816 beneficiaries of the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) programme to the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS).
This follows a directive by the Minister of Health to all Scheme Managers to give automatic coverage to all beneficiaries of LEAP because
most of them could not afford to pay the premiums.
Mr. Eugene Yirbour, Senior Project Officer of SEND Ghana, a Non- Governmental Organization engaged in poverty alleviation advocacy, made this
known in the most recent issue of "HIPC Watch," a quarterly publication of the organization.
He said it was inconceivable that beneficiaries of LEAP were never considered as indigenes, though they could not afford the premiums and were thus excluded from health care benefits.
Mr. Yirbour explained that LEAP, like the NHIS, was a poverty reduction strategy to provide basic needs to the targeted population and to empower them to leap out of the malaise of extreme poverty.
"A monthly stipend of eight to a maximum of fifteen Ghana cedis is paid to a household which cannot afford three square meals a day," he stated.
"Invariably, such people are as poor as the indigenes if not worse and cannot truly afford the premium under the NHIS."
He lauded the vision of creating an all inclusive and socially empowered society through the provision of interventions such as the NHIS,
School Feeding Programme, Capitation Grant, Agricultural Input Support Programme and Micro-Finance Schemes for the protection of people living in situations of extreme poverty and deprivation.