Poverty, Joblessness, Bane Of NHI Law Implementation -Stakeholders 

Stakeholders have lamented the  poor implementation of the National Health Insurance Policy (NHI), saying it is what has made it difficult to make headway in achieving universal health coverage.
The stakeholders spoke at a one-day validation meeting of the Policy Brief on Full Implementation of NHI law, organised by Centre for Social Justice in partnership with Palladium and United States of America for International Development (USAID) in Ado Ekiti, recently.
The Chairman, Nigeria Labour Congress, Ekiti State chapter, Com. Kolapo Olatunde and a staff of the National Health Insurance Authority, Dr Jide Oloyede, said National Health Insurance Law that was supposed to make the policy mandatory for all Nigerians could not be holistically implemented due to unemployment and poverty.
The NLC Chairman said many of the workers in the states, who had keyed into the policy, could not access quality healthcare in their various facilities as a result of epileptic remittances of their deductions into the accounts of service providers.
He said the programme could only be made compulsory for all workers, if the N30,000 minimum wage and the consequential adjustment are implemented across board.
On his part, an expert and staff of NHIA, Dr. Jide Oloyede, said the cankerworms of poverty and joblessness are issues to be considered before holistic implementation of the law, stating, however, that government has special programmes that capture poor Nigerians.
Oloyede said: “What we have noticed is that the health insurance programme is well patronised by the Federal Government agencies. Health insurance is now mandatory because the NHI law stipulates that and it is going to be effected.

“The authority is trying to create avenues to ensure that many poor and vulnerable people are captured, after that the law will be enforced and sanctions await those defying the order.”

The General Manager, Ekiti State Health Insurance, Dr. Aderiye, revealed that 70 per cent of Ekiti people did not have the National Identification Number, saying this was impeding their accessibility of the expected healthcare system under insurance scheme.

“Knowing that many people are incapacitated financially, government is introducing equity plan covering elderly, physically challenged, children, pregnant women and poor Nigerians”, he said.

The stakeholders further agreed that transparency and accountability were required in the management of the policy, calling for the deployment of skillful human resources for effective management, while also seeking political patronage to make it all- inclusive.

“The government should provide incentives for formal and informal participants to lure more people into it and it must make the economy stronger. When people are poor, they won’t be able to enroll in health insurance,” they said.