A report of the taskforce formed by the government to undertake feasibility studies of the one-time premium payment for the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) says it can be done. Dr. Benjamin Kunbour, the Minister of Hea1th, disclosed this yesterday when he opened the Ghana Health Summit 2010 in Accra. The five-day meeting, aimed at reviewing reports on the health sector from last year is under the theme, 'From strategy to action'. More than 500 participants from the health sector and representatives of development partners are attending the summit. Dr. Kunbuor said based on the outcome of the report, the government was prepared to introduce the one-time payment for the NHIS. He admitted, there were challenges, but emphasised that it was feasible. Dr. Kunbuor said the report of the taskforce had brought to the fore serious loopholes in the operations of the scheme which when tackled, could serve as a source of huge revenue that could be used to effectively run the system without much pressure on the people. Other sources of revenue, he said, had also been identified by the taskforce which would ultimately make the one-time payment a reality. Dr. Kunbour said it was unfortunate that some people had been so skeptical about the feasibility of a one-time payment of premium of the scheme and assured that it would definitely come on. On malaria, Dr Kunbour said it was important for stakeholders to be creative in their efforts to deal with it and not to approach it in the current fragmented manner. He expressed the hope that participants at the summit would put the issue of malaria under serious scrutiny and come out with practical measures that could be used to combat the disease. On wastage in the health sector, the minister said it was said that some people allowed drugs that cost millions of dollars to expire, adding that a team was currently investigating a case of alleged expired drugs which were meant for disposal. "When the report comes out, there will be sanctions, and they will be very severe," he warned. The Minister of Justice and Attorney General, Mrs Betty Mould Iddrisu, who chaired the function, expressed concern about the increasing rate of maternal mortality and stressed the need for every effort to be made to arrest the situation. Although there are challenges to attaining the Millennium Development Goals, the Attorney General called for urgent measures to be put in place to remove the bottlenecks to enable the country to achieve them by the stipulated deadline of 2015. The Danish Ambassador to Ghana, Mr Stig Barlyng, who represented the country's development partners in the health sector, stressed the need for coordination between the Ministries of Health, Finance and Economic Planning and their agencies to establish a new policy framework adapted to the changing dynamics of drug procurement, distribution and revenue collection and reimbursement across the multiple agencies and levels of the health system. He assured of the continuous support of development partners to Ghana in her fight against malaria.