…Says, ‘Our insurance premium not increased despite inflation’
Delta State government has disclosed that one of the major ways it has been tackling poverty in the state is through its health insurance scheme, covering both physically challenged and financially challenged persons across the 25 Local Government Areas of the state.
Through the scheme, over 38 percent of the state’s population have been positively touched within the eight years of its operation even as the insurance premium stands at 7,000 per enrollee per annum, despite the economic realities in the country, the Delta State Contributory Health Commission (DSCHC) has said.
This comes at a very huge cost as the bills of the beneficiaries from its over 500 health facilities in the state are paid by the commission.
Isaac Akpoveta, the Director-General and Chief Executive Officer (MD/CEO) of the commission, made the revelations on Wednesday when the executives and members of the Correspondent Chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Delta State, visited him at the commission’s headquarters in the state capital,
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He said that reason for not increasing the premium is that the commission is established to prevent residents of the state from financial disasters and to protect them from financial constraints.
“As the country is plunged into worsening economic crisis, many Nigerians have been pulled into poverty as they are unable to pay their health bills,” he observed.
“People sell land and properties to pay health bills and to secure their health but Delta Health insurance Scheme is to prevent all that,” he said.
He said that the health bills are subsidised to enable the beneficiaries access quality and affordable healthcare.
“In 2016, when the commission did the accrual determination of how much should cover an individual healthcare in a year, it was about N18,000. By now, that amount would be higher given the inflationary trend in the country but the state government under Sheriff Oborevwori believes in taking care of its people and has continued to subsidise healthcare,” he said.
Akpoveta, a medical doctor, who explained that the commission was primarily set up to finance the health sector, said it has maintained the insurance premium. With N7,000 premium, an enrollee would have access to healthcare in any facility in the state and designated facilities outside the state for one year, said the DG.
He said that the scheme is to cover all residents of Delta, irrespective of tribe, language or colour, religion or culture but all that live in the state should be covered, adding that it is backed by the law and mandatory for all residents in the state.
The state is determined to protect the vulnerable people, particularly pregnant women and children under five years and Persons with Disabilities (PWDs).
“The state government subsidises 300 cesarean sections across its 560 health facilities,” he said.
He also said that the state remains number one in contributory health insurance in the country with the enrollment figure presently at over 2 million persons across the nook and cranny of the state.
Th state subsidises the healthcare of pregnant women and children under age five free at a cost running into millions.
He noted that these services were some of the silent efforts of the state government that were not noticed, adding that only the media as an agent of development could highlight them.
The scheme by law has plans – the equity plan is for the vulnerable, the formal plan is for the Civil Servants and the organised private sector, while the informal plan is for the artisans, Akpoveta explained.
He called on more privileged Deltans to sponsor and adopt indigent enrollees into the scheme to access quality healthcare.
Ifeanyi Olannye, the chairman, Correspondent Chapel of the NUJ had commended the state government’s commitmrnt at ensuring subsidised, accessible and quality healthcare to the people notwithstanding the rate of inflation in the country.
