NHIS Laments Low Enrolment In Rivers

The National Health
Insurance Scheme (NHIS) has lamented the very low enrolment of Rivers people and residents of the state in the scheme aimed at providing accessible, affordable and available quality services that meet World Health Organisation (WHO) target towards achieving sustainable healthcare in the country.
The Rivers State Coordinator, NHIS, Williams Ebiokobo, who regretted the huge losses in healthcare delivery and the consequences to future generations of Rivers people, also decried the enormous negative impact of the low patronage of the scheme on the state’s economy and revenue base.
Ebiokobo, who spoke in an exclusive interview with The Tide in his office in Port Harcourt, emphasised that the state was losing so much from the low enrolment into the health insurance scheme, adding that apart from the wide gap this has created in meeting the desperate health challenges of the people, especially the low income earners and local community dwellers, the state government was also losing the huge financial support of the federal government and WHO in funding public health needs in the state.
He said that the lack of awareness of the importance of the scheme on the promotion of public health had slowed buy-in by majority of Rivers people and residents of the state, thereby defeating the purpose for the scheme.
The coordinator appealed to the Rivers State Government to throw its weight behind the scheme through financial support, provision to logistics and public healthcare service professionals, adding that the more than 160 public primary, seven secondary and two tertiary healthcare facilities in the state were enough to provide quality healthcare coverage for the people of the state.
Ebiokobo reminded the Governor Nyesom Wike-led administration that its urgent intervention in the scheme woulD enable the federal government off-set 15 percent of the state’s health sector budget, enhance community and public health status of the state even with government’s low annual expenditures on the provision of healthcare services and also dramatically increase internally generated revenue base of the government, especially at this time when federal allocations have plummeted due mainly to low crude oil prices.
According to him, keying into the scheme will enable the government drive down infant and maternal mortality rate in the state, reduce public sector expenditure in the provision of healthcare services, while increasing government spending in infrastructure upgrade, execution of projects that promote sustainable development, and provision of social services for majority of the people living in the state, and advised the governor to encourage the State House of Assembly to enact legislation compelling workers in the public and private sectors to enrol in the scheme.

Susan Serekara-Nwikhana