More people are embracing the contributory health insurance Scheme In Delta state as registered enrollees have climbed over 200,000 .
Ben Nkechika, the Director-General, Delta State Contributory Health Commission disclosed in Asaba that the enrollees include pregnant women, children under five years, public servants and widows since the scheme started.
“As at today, we have over 200,000 enrollees in the scheme spread across the pregnant women, children under five, public service workers and the widows.
“Government felt that another group of persons that have health challenges are widows, so, over 5,242 widows across the state have been captured and government is paying for their premium of N7,000 yearly.
“Government is also paying for pregnant women and children under five years of age and these 200,000 enrollees are receiving healthcare in over 107 primary health facilities, 53 secondary facilities and 47 private hospitals across the state,” he said.
He said that government would engage the general public to key into the scheme next week and this would include tricycle riders, market women, artisans and farmers.
“The scheme’s target is to ensure that nobody irrespective of social or economic status should be left behind from accessing the healthcare, everybody would be accommodated.
“If you cannot pay, we find a way to make you pay and for you to partake in that the first thing is that you must get registered.
“This why we are currently deploying 500 field registration agents, trained and spread through all the wards and primary healthcare centres across the state to register and collect the N7,000 premium par participant for one year.
“Registration centres will be located in market places, town halls and churches, among other public places, to get the people enrolled,” Nkechika said.
He said that government was committed to ensuring that the scheme was sustained and properly managed for the fund that it received to effectively deliver quality healthcare to the enrollees.
“One of the key things we seek to do in this regard is sustainability, we not only receive funds but fund is properly managed.
“To ensure that where there is catastrophic situations such as an epidemic in the state, there is always a reserved fund to manage such cases,” he said.
He noted that while all these processes were on, provisions were made to ensure that both the primary and secondary healthcare facilities were upgraded to provide quality services to the enrollees.
He said that the governor has approved that the 107 primarily facilities in the state be rehabilitated and 62 secondary facilities also renovated.
“The central hospital Asaba is receiving attention and will be put to use in the next few weeks to start providing care,” he said.
He said that enrollees could change their first choice facility by following a defined process and providing reasons for the change.
He said that the system was automated in such a way that all the primary health facilities in the state and that of the secondary facilities have been linked through the Information Communication Technology (ICT) base.
He said that the scheme also created a reserve fund to capture catastrophic situations, this is because health insurance cannot manage all disease conditions but there are certain situations that government might have to intervene.
“So, the premium is N7,000 and from this, five per cent of the premium is always saved for those situations that could occur later in life.
“There could be a situation where there is epidemic and in such situation we must intervene, so we call such a catastrophic situation.
“The state already have a programme where if you have a challenge, you can write to the governor for assistance, that programme evolves into this,” Nkechika said.
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