Stakeholders in the health sector in Abuja have identified a paucity of funds as a factor militating against the effective and comprehensive enrolment of beneficiaries of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS).
They made this known to the media on the sideline of the just concluded two days health stakeholders meeting on “Improving the Realisation of the Right to Health in Nigeria” in Abuja.
The meeting comprised seven state health commissioners, executive secretaries of Primary Healthcare Development agencies, and heads of Health Insurance agencies in the states.
The states affected included Bauchi, Adamawa, Sokoto, Ekiti, Imo, Nasarawa, and Rivers, as well as FCT.
The meeting was geared toward planning, reviewing, and strengthening the nation’s health system.
Dr. Adetoye Olusanya, General Manager, of Ekiti State Health Insurance Agency, said the financial challenges had been a major setback towards the effective enrolment of beneficiaries of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS).
He said the counterpart funding coming from the Federal Government to the state and the agency to support the scheme had not been stable.
Olusanya said that the third tranche of the Basic Healthcare Provision Fund (BHPF) which had just been released for the year 2023 had a shortfall when compared to the second tranche earlier released.
“In the second tranch we were given N280 million and now we were given only N170 million and that is what we are expected to use for the entire year.
“This means that our enrollment that has gone up before will now be affected, and that means we really need to rethink doing this work.
“When we were given N280 million, our target is to scale up to 25,000 enrollees considering the premium that was paid, now this year the payment dropped to N170 million.
“So with this, we might not be able to take up the vulnerable population and that is the number one headache for us, financial challenge.
“At the state level, we have our issues like sensitization, our effort of getting people involved is still not adequate, we need money for facilities, capital,” he said.
Dr. Ujulu Amos, the Executive Secretary, of Adamawa State Contributory Health Management Agency, also aligned with the financial challenge, saying it had been a major problem of the NHIS in the state.
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He added that the lack of competent health workers in form of human resources, as well as the security of lives and property were also challenges confronting the growth of NHIS in the state.
Amos said that the state Contributory Health Management Agency had recorded some tremendous successes within the period of two years of his administration.
He said that the agency had enjoyed the support of Gov. Ahmadu Fintiri to surmount all its challenges.
“We have put measures in place to address these challenges, I personally believe the challenges are opportunities to reverse the narrative, so there are a lot of things we are doing.
“We have embarked on a state-wide sensitization to create awareness among the people to understand the importance of health insurance; we have enrolled the poor and the vulnerable in this scheme.
“We are embarking on aggressive capacity building for the healthcare workers because we have a shortage of such workers.
“Currently the state government had put measures in place and one of such measures is equaling the payment of state workers with that of the Federal workers.
“With this new policy that the government has put in place we are likely going to see the retention of healthcare workers,” he stressed.
Contributing, Mrs. Vetty Agala, Head of the Healthcare Financing Unit, Rivers State Ministry of Health, stated that to overcome the challenges in the health sector, there must be policy drive and strong political will from people in charge to do so.
She stated that political will and policy drive must be strengthened, as well as the strengthening of those at the helm of affairs to exercise their rights.
According to her, workers are leaving the health sector because they are not motivated and this narrative must change for a better health sector.
She disclosed that the state of the nation’s economy had also affected the health sector, adding that the economy must be in the right tune if the challenges must be overcome.
Agala said that Nigeria must move from a state of consumption to production, specifically in drug and vaccine manufacturing for the sector to attain its peak.
