BY AMOS TAUNA, KADUNA – The National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), has said that the task before it is to get the entire Nigerian populace key into the scheme.
Executive Secretary of the Scheme, Professor Mohammed Nasir Sambo, who announced this in Kaduna on Saturday during an informal interactive session with Health Correspondents, noted that the populace are not interested in the recovery but in what is Insurance and how they will benefit from it.
The NHIS boss also announced plans by the Scheme to enroll members of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), in the Scheme, adding that, under the platform of the Scheme’s “Universal Health Coverage Matrix”, it has been able to map all Nigerians including the NYSC.
Sambo said that the NHIS has been engaging with the NYSC to ensure that the NYSC members are covered in the frame up in the National Insurance Scheme.
He explained that there is a Presidential directive that the NYSC members should be covered, pointing out that over the years, there was no budgetary provision.
The NHIS boss explained discussion between the NHIS and NYSC as well as the Budget Office of the Federal Ministry of Health has far towards ensuring adequate release of fund to cover the NYSC members.
Prof Sambo said that the time has come to pass to Nigerians the right and useful information that will benefit the people at the rural communities and have them protected from catastrophic health challenges.
Sambo also announced that the scheme is presently doing a massive enrolment of Nigerians in its system in order to ensure universal coverage of all, adding that the enrolment has to do with accreditation of healthcare facilities, quality insurance, payment system where people pay money to the healthcare organisation and to the healthcare facilities as well.
The NHIS Executive Secretary noted that with the massive enrolment of an automation, it is easy to implement and track where there is any problem as it will enable the scheme to provide solution if a situation arises.
Sambo further said; “But if we go on doing manually, the attainment of health insurance universal health coverage as prescribed by Sustainable Development Goal (SDG), would elude the country.”
The NHIS Executive Secretary said that with the 21st century in which the entire global community is talking about e-governance, the NHIS is proceeding with the e-governance, stressing that the Scheme has to do with massive enrolment of people all over the country.
He said that in order for the NHIS to succeed, critical factors in the Scheme is to ensure that information that is reliable and accurate has to go to the minds of the people because it helps an organisation like the NHIS that is dealing with the entire Nigerians.
According to Sambo; “Therefore, we need to closely engage with the media so that Nigerians understand the agency’s philosophy of the Scheme and to understand the mechanism of action of the NHIS so that they accurately inform, educate and communicate to the people to join the scheme as one of the key issues in the development agenda which is in line with the present administration”.
The NHIS boss said that the scheme has taken time to get desk officers to properly understand the Scheme from the root so that whenever they are reporting, they report correctly and accurately being the beginning of a strategic engagement.
In the words of Sambo; “We want to create a platform where we will be sending information to the desk officers directly on every event that we are undertaking and any success and problem that we have recorded for the purpose of correction”.
