The President of Nigerian Medical Association Dr. Kayode Obembe, has advised the federal government to make the health insurance scheme mandatory for every Nigerian. Obembe, said it was impossible to achieve universal coverage through insurance scheme when enrolment was voluntary as it is under the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS).
He said this at the weekend while speaking in Ayedun, Ikole local government of Ekiti state, during the flag off of the community’s health insurance scheme.
To make the scheme practicable, Obembe also urged the government to increase its expenditure from the present five per cent to 15 per cent as pledged by African leaders in the Year 2000 in order to achieve universal health coverage in the country.
Ayedun community became the first town in the South West geo-political zone to have the scheme since June 6, 2005, when it was flagged off by the former President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo. “The health facilities should be equally distributed; brain drain should be curtailed by making the facilities available in Nigeria, while private health facilities should be integrated in the service delivery in Nigeria.
States and local governments should embrace health insurance,” he said. Also speaking, the Ag. Executive Secretary of National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), Mr. Femi Akingbade, said in order to achieve the presidential order that every Nigerian should be captured in the universal health insurance scheme, the NHIS had developed an “effective and efficient community based social health insurance programme to capture over 70 per cent of the population which he said are in the informal sector but leave in the rural areas.
He said part of the approaches adopted by the NHIS in the implementation of the Community Based Health Insurance programmes include among others, taking cognisance of community’s ownership, social solidarity inherent in the Nigerian people, their culture and the various socio-economic groupings in the country. While commending Ayedun community for the feat, Akingbade said the launch of NHIS in the community will create a platform for “reaching the unreached.”
He assured that the NHIS is working assiduously to ensure that the vulnerable groups in the society have access to the health insurance scheme. The Chairman, Board of Trustees, National Launching of Ayedun Community-Based Social Health Insurance Programme, Mr. Dapo Adelusi, said 4,977 members of the community have enrolled in the scheme.
By: Doyin Adebusuyi,
Daily Trust Nwws
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