Ghana Health Service (GHS) staff in the Builsa District have suggested to the National Health Insurance Authority to assign every subscriber of the scheme to one health facility to receive healthcare. They said at a workshop held at Sandema that the current system under which subscribers could visit any facility of their choice has brought in its wake duplication, thereby increasing cost of the scheme. The staff said this poses danger to subscribers’ health as they visit multiple health facilities for drugs even when they are receiving treatment from other facilities. The participants argued there are high tendencies of patients abusing their systems with several drugs they receive from these facilities. The workshop was organized by the Upper East Regional Directorate of the GHS for its staff throughout the region to remind them of the need to give special attention to clients. Regional Health Promoter at the Regional Health Directorate, Mr. Gaston Bozie, said it had become necessary to organize such programmes to sensitize staff of the service in the face of stiff competition in health care delivery in the region. He said the idea is also to get health staff to understand the modalities in customer care so they could add more innovative skills in dealing with patients. The Upper East Regional Directorate of the GHS is embarking on a regional campaign to sensitize its staff in order to attract and keep more patients at its facilities. This has been necessitated by recent decline in patient attendance at some key public health facilities in the region following recent upsurge of private health facilities. The decline has partly been attributed to the lack of customer care skills by health providers from the GHS and this has affected service delivery and rust from the public who considered public health facilities their first choice in seeking medical care. Source: GNA