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The National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) is to introduce three new initiatives to promote primary health care in the country.

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of NHIA, Mr Sylvester Mensah, made this known when a three-member Japanese delegation visited the authority yesterday in Accra to help identify and address the challenges that the authority was facing currently.

The initiatives are the introduction of family planning into the National Health Insurance Scheme as a key idea for 2015, enrolling less-privileged persons onto the scheme and putting the universal healthcare coverage (UHC) into operation.

He said the new initiatives were in accordance with the new NHIA Law 2012 (Act 852), adding that the implementation of the UHC followed a proposal from the International Healthcare Coverage to ensure that all residents in the country are  covered under the health insurance scheme.

Currently, a little over 10 million Ghanaians out of the 24 million people have registered with the NHIS.

Universal Healthcare Coverage
Mr Mensah said the UHC would soon be rolled out to ensure that every citizen was a member of the NHIS apart from being members of any private health insurance scheme.

He  said the NHIA in collaboration with the University of Professional Studies (UPSA) had established a UHC Centre, which would serve as a hub for training and exchange of ideas on how to implement the UHC and also to develop the capacity of health scheme personnel.

Japanese delegation 
In his response, the Senior Advisor of the Japan International Co-operation Agency (JICA), Ms Sugishita Tomohiko, said the visit to the authority formed part of its effort to negotiate with countries in Africa, especially Ghana, to implement the universal health care.

She said the Japanese government was promoting universal health care, a developing model, as part of its 2015 agenda to improve primary health care in developing countries.

According to her, since the visit was a preliminary one, the team would put a  proposal together to assist the authority financially and technically to address the challenges that had been outlined.

Financial challenges
The Board Chairman of NHIA, Mr Emmanuel Ernest Kwesie, also pointed out to the delegation the current financial challenges that the authority was facing.

He said five months’ arrears  in claims had not been paid to healthcare providers due to financial hitches and called on the delegation for assistance.