NMA Wants FG To Deregulate NHIS

The National President of the Nigeria Medical Association (NMA), Dr Adebayo Fademi has called on the Federal Government to deregulate the National Health and Insurance Scheme (NHIS) in order to make it effective.
Dr Fademi, who made the call recently in Port Harcourt at the just concluded Doctors’ Assessment Week, noted that “the law establishing the scheme needs to be reviewed”.
He lamented the state of primary health care centres that it is supposed to serve majority of Nigerians.
This, he said is in spite of the Federal Government’s plan to build and equip befitting health facilities across the country.
Government has come up with a plan to build health care centres in all 36 states of the country, including the FCT, but lacks the political will to carry out the project”, he said.
The NMA boss noted that other countries have their own health care schemes that have worked for them, and for which their citizenry spend little to access, unlike the NHIS in Nigeria.
Currently, he said, “Less than 5 percent of Nigeria’s population is registered with the NHIS programme, and this is not good for the health of the citizenry, most of who cannot afford their medical bills”.
While noting that the scheme is still largely for the Federal Government staff, hence a lot of the populace have been deprived of its benefits, he called on the government to “place a high premium on the NHIS to get the best out of it”.
“One way to do this”, he explained”, is to deregulate the scheme in the same way the Nigeria Airways and Telecommunications were deregulated.
According to him, this is necessary to attract the private sector’s involvement, and will at the long run attract more patronage fro m the citizenry.
He used the opportunity to thank the host of the week-long Port Harcourt event, Dr Emi Membere-Otagi for being good host