FG TASKS NHIS TO ENSURE UNIVERSAL COVERAGE

From ALI MUHAMMAD RABIU, Ilorin
Posted: Monday, September 6, 2010

THE Federal Government has directed the management of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) to ensure universal coverage for all Nigerians living within the country by 2015. Alhaji Ahmed Ishaq, the Zonal Co-ordinator of NHIS, disclosed this in Ilorin while speaking at a workshop organised for NHIS stakeholders in North Central hosted by Kwara State.
According to him, the presidential directive posed a major challenge to the organization as it would have to reach out to all other tiers of government, since health was listed in the concurrent legislative list. He observed that the directive had become necessary to prevent needless loss of lives in the country.
The Co-ordinator explained that the task of achieving the feat had become even more challenging given that its officials could not force the state and local governments have their separate health policies. Ishaq disclosed that from various researches carried out by the scheme, the populations of the country living below one dollar a day still bear over 90 per cent of Nigeria’s disease burden.
He stated that out of the number of Nigerians living below the poverty line, 70 per cent were found in rural and suburban areas scattered all over the nation. Ishaq lamented that some communities, especially in the rural areas that were yet to embrace the scheme.
According to him, despite the efforts of the government with the scheme, Nigerians were yet to fully appreciate the importance of health insurance. Ishaq advised Nigerians to take advantage of the advance financing of medical expenses provided through contributions as specified in their insurance policies.
He listed some of the areas the organization was receiving complaints as default in capitation payment, delay in attendance to referral cases and the slow response to payment of fee-for-service bill. In his address of welcome, the state Commissioner for Health, Alhaji Ladi Hassan stressed the need to reposition the various health facilities in the country. He called on governments at all levels and Nigerians to continue to patronize the scheme and fashion ways of improving it.