NOSDRA seeks partnership with NHIS for universal health coverage

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4 years ago

NOSDRA, OML 95

Universal Health Coverage (UHC) has received a boost as National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) and the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA) have agreed to work together.

The understanding was reached when the Director-General of NOSDRA, Mr Idris Musa, paid a courtesy visit to the Executive Secretary of National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), Prof Mohammed Sambo, at the Scheme’s Corporate Head Office in Abuja.

Sambo harped on the Scheme’s commitment to ensuring that all Nigerians in the public and private sector have access to affordable and quality healthcare, maintaining that the Scheme had begun the implementation of a ten-year strategic plan that will birth UHC in 2030 in line with Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Sambo said: “Great nations and organisations are built on carefully articulated and designed plans. In the same vein, UHC can be achieved through the vehicle of the ten-year strategic plan.”

On coverage of the public sector, Sambo told his guest that nearly all workers in Federal Government payroll and their dependents have been enrolled to receive care under the Scheme.

“Its flagship programme-GIFSHIP is a window for other categories of people outside the formal sector to receive health insurance,” Sambo added.

In efforts to reposition the Scheme for effectiveness, Sambo emphasised that NHIS was currently being driven by three-point agenda reforms, listing them as value-reorientation, transparency and accountability and accelerating the drive towards the attainment of universal health coverage,

In an apparent response to HMOs’ indebtedness to healthcare facilities, Sambo said a reconciliation exercise between HMOs and Healthcare facilities conducted under the watchful oversight of the Scheme last year yielded the recovery of funds.

“This is imperatives of strengthening the system to ensure that facilities are never owed by HMOs remain. adding that the reforms were consistent with President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration’s Next level agenda on health,” Sambo stated.

Sambo further hinted at the outlook of Health maintenance organisations (HMOs) operations as he stated that the present arrangement where organisations selected HMOs on behalf of their staff who are beneficiaries under the Scheme will be replaced before the end of the year with an electronic platform that will allow NHIS beneficiaries to choose their fund managers.

Speaking earlier, the Director-General of NOSDRA, Idris Musa, stated that the purpose of his visit was to partner with the Scheme to smoothen access to care for the staff of NOSDRA.

Musa conceded that his agency was willing to abide by the operational guidelines of the health insurance regulator in the course of the collaboration.

Musa also acknowledged that the reforms being carried out by the Prof Sambo leadership was a welcome development as it was enduring, adding that only leaders who know their worth work to leave behind a memorable legacy.