The Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection together with the National Health Insurance Authority has registered over five-hundred elderly persons in Techiman onto the NHIS.

Speaking at the launch of the programme in Techiman in the Brong Ahafo Region, the sector minister Nana Oye Lithur said the exercise is part of measures put in place by the government to make sure the elderly have more comfortable lives.

“They have worked throughout their lives and now that they are old and they at the twilight of their years, we as a country have to support them,” she stated.

In January 2015, the Ministry introduced the Eban Elderly Welfare Card Project for elderly persons above sixty five years to be taken care of by the state.

The card will allow elderly people above sixty five years to pay fifty percent of fares when they board Metro Mass Transit buses.

It will also help the aged get priority when they go to banks, visit hospitals and some other public places.

According to her, about one thousand Eban cards were issued on a pilot basis at Chorkor, Bukom, Nima, La, Nungua and Ashaiman, all in Accra with the support of the Ministry of Transport and the UNFPA

“Presently, we are rolling out the registration of 25,000 elderly persons. This Municipality, Techiman is the first municipality to receive the service in the Brong Ahafo Region,” she said.

The Minister added that approximately 9,000 elderly persons in Central, Volta and Eastern regions have been registered in the Eban project.

She assured that five hundred elderly persons were going to be issued the Eban cards.

“We will also register them free of charge onto the National Health Insurance Scheme,” she asserted.

According to her, inmates at all prisons, people at leprosaria and orphanages across the country will be registered freely under the National Health Insurance Scheme.

She assured that there will soon be a law for the aged in Ghana as her ministry has submitted a drafted national aging bill.

“Under President Mahama, we will have a law for the aged in Ghana,” the minister added.