NO fewer than 736 families made up of 3461
people have so far registered for the pilot scheme of the
community based health insurance scheme in Lagos State otherwise
known as the Ikosi-Isheri Mutual Health Plan, the State
Commissioner for Health, Dr Jide Idris has disclosed.
Idris who disclosed this recently while on a
facility visit to the Center was particularly happy with the way
and enthusiasm the people of Olowora and environs received the
scheme which he noted marked the beginning of a new order in the
creation of a formalized welfare system for the provision of
sustainable healthcare coverage for the citizens.
The Commissioner who was accompanied on the
visit by the Special Adviser on Health, Mr. Toyin Amzat and the
Chairman, House Committee on Health, Dr Samuel Adejare,
explained that the Scheme was specifically designed to provide
financial access to healthcare for members of the Olowora,
Isheri and Magodo communities through a prepayment system in
which contributions from families in these communities are
collected and pooled together into a fund managed by the
community adding that the fund is then use to provide healthcare
services for members registered under the scheme thereby
ensuring the accessibility of qualitative and affordable health
care services to the people.
Idris opined that the scheme, which was an
initiative of the state government, was established in response
to identified problems affecting healthcare services in the
state especially at the local government levels stressing that
the programme is particularly targeted at those in the informal
sector such as self-employed, artisans, traders, markets women
and those with unreliable source of substance, rural communities
as well as the poor.
Dr Idris noted that that the
institutionalization of a State Health Insurance Scheme forms
not only an integral part of the state government’s health
sector reform agenda process, to which the state government has
renewed its commitment to implement by deploying all resources
necessary to actualize, but also the builds up the momentum
prior to unfolding of the full extent of the Lagos State Managed
Care Scheme within the next few months.
"The setting up of this pilot scheme is
conceived as a precursor to the wider development of such
schemes across the State with the plan to establish at least one
Mutual Health Association in each local government over the next
four years. Lagos state government is committed to the pursuit
of reforms in the health sector we have embarked upon bearing in
mind the inextricable links between health and development, the
pervasive vicious cycle of ill-health and poverty amongst the
poorer segments of populations and the potential of health as a
key determinant of economic growth and social development",
Idris opined.
According to the him, the decision of the
state government to embark upon the community-based health
insurance model within the larger State Health Insurance Scheme
framework was based on both global best practices as well as a
firm understanding of the distinctive features of the state’s
population and economy stressing that government was not unaware
that in extending social health protection through health
insurance and instituting formal-type health insurance systems
akin to those in developed economies would not deliver the
expected impact as the larger part of our population are within
the informal sector economy where incomes are smaller,
irregular, and largely unbanked.
He listed some of the benefits to be derived
from the scheme as including the possibilities for
community-based health promotion and disease prevention;
strengthening of the primary healthcare system; public-private
partnerships in healthcare provision; data collection for the
proposed state social security system; effective targeting of
existing State subsidies for health; promotion of enterprise in
communities; and the reduction of poverty in the population
among others stressing that the state government has also
resolved to explore the full benefits of these opportunities
within its implementation framework in order to maximize the
impact of the strategy in the medium and long term.
"The opportunities for partnerships and
collaborations on this project are quite extensive as we scale
up the scheme to other parts of the state within the next few
years. I am therefore calling upon the Development Community,
Organized Private Sector, Philanthropic individuals, Research
Institutions, Public Health Departments of Tertiary
Institutions, Health Maintenance Organizations, Non-Governmental
Organizations and other well meaning Lagosians and indeed
Nigerians to partner with the Lagos State Government in
extending social health protection to the poor and informal
sector populations in Lagos State," the Commissioner noted.
