By Maureen Nwine and Esther Edebor
The Management of Edo State Health Insurance Scheme (EDOHIS) has started to enroll Special Advisers (SAs) and Senior Special Advisers (SSA) in Edo State South Senatorial District as part of its ongoing mobile enrollment and enlightenment campaign.
The event witnessed a large turnout of political appointees from the district and was a follow-up on the meeting between the representatives of the political appointees’ and the management of the Scheme that took place at the Commission’s headquarters earlier in the Month.
Addressing the political appointees, the director of ICT-Customer Service, EDOHIS, Mr. Efemwenkiekie Nesta, announced that the mandate is to cover all Edo residents, regardless of social status, and that the Commission has accredited facilities (private and public hospitals), and leverages on technology to provide high-quality medical care to Edo residents.
Signed into law by the State Government in 2019, Mr. Efemwenkiekie said the scheme seeks to proffer a final solution to the deteriorating health standards of people caused primarily by the inability of residents to afford proper medical care. He also said the Health Insurance Scheme seeks to achieve Universal Health Coverage by providing quality, affordable and accessible healthcare, especially in cases of emergencies.
Mr Efemwenkiekie explained that Health Insurance Scheme has a free health plan to cover the vulnerable groups in the state in the event of ill health under the Basic Health Care Provision Fund, (BHCPF) and the State Equity Plan which is funded with 1 percent of the Consolidated Revenue from the Federal and 25% counterpart fund from the State Government and 2% across all health plans and 1% Consolidated revenue fund from the state.
So far, the EDOHIS has enrolled about 70,000 Edo residents who continue to get high-quality healthcare for a payment of 10% for the cost of drugs and diagnostics since the scheme began to provide healthcare services in 2021. The Business Development Director, Mr. Efosa Oyegun who disclosed this said ‘’the program offers a full range of medical services to the people of Edo, including preventive and curative services ranging from general practice and consulting, outpatient treatment, maternal and neonatal and reproductive health, minor and major surgical procedures, laboratory services, radiological services, pharmaceutical services, emergencies, paediatrics, obstetrics & gynaecology, ENT services, dental care among other services’’.
Speaking further, he revealed that “the commission’s monitoring team makes ad hoc and scheduled inspections of the various facilities to ensure that the agreed-upon standards of services are upheld in order to ensure that enrollees receive excellent care from the facilities that are assigned to them’’.
The enrollment outreach was held at the John Odigie-Oyegun Public service Academy (JOOPSA) as one of the several outreach programs of the EDOHIS to ensure that Edo residents understand the importance of health insurance and fully key into it.
