Dr Ahmed Danfulani, the Executive Secretary, FCT Health Insurance Scheme, says the scheme has concluded
arrangements to roll out health insurance for retirees, pregnant women, youths and adolescents to fast track the attainment of Universal Health Coverage (UCH).
UHC means that all individuals and communities receive the health services they need, including the full spectrum of essential quality health services
from health promotion to prevention, treatment, rehabilitation and palliative care, without suffering any financial hardship.
Danfulani told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Wednesday that the scheme was already working toward enrolling children under five years and some neglected people in the FCT into the scheme this year.
According to him, the major challenge of the scheme is getting enough funding for majority of people that need health insurance, noting that majority of people that need health insurance are poor and vulnerable.
He said “they (the poor and vulnerable) are not less than 60 per cent of the population so you can imagine how difficult it is to service 60 per cent of the population.
“Also, the 40 per cent that are going to pay will now subsidise for the 60 per cent but we are glad that the Basic Health Care Provision Fund (BHCPF) will augment some of the fund.’’
He added that the FCT Health Insurance Scheme was one of the earliest health insurance agencies, saying “it is more than 10 years old.
“We have been able to enroll all the staff of FCTA under the formal sector.
“We have gone into informal sector; individuals that come, we have enrolled them and we have also visited some communities under the pro-poor programme.
“Currently, we are enrolling poor people in Gwagwalada Area Council,” the executive secretary said.
Danfulani, also the Vice Chairman of the Forum of CEOs, State Health Insurance Agencies (SHIAs) in Nigeria, expressed optimism that the Health Insurance Under One Roof (HIUOR) would help to improve enrolees’ experience.
Health Insurance Under one Roof (HIUOR) is an approach to decentralising insurance practice in Nigeria to sub-national level (states) with the central coordinating entity at the federal level.
“One of the reasons why we formed HIUOR is to improve enrolling experience in terms of the services they get, in terms of the delay and in terms of prescription of drugs.
“Very soon, you will see great improvement in all of that,’’ he said.
In addition, he said, the forum had worked with the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) to review some grey areas in HIUOR document and to streamline it to sizeable document from about 70 to 30 pages.
Danfulani noted that the coverage had improved since the introduction of HIUOR and that almost all the 36 states of the federation have health insurance schemes now.
According to him, SHIAs have their own laws and operational modalities and have started to record impressive success. (NAN)
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