The Gombe State Contributory Healthcare Management Agency, GoHealth, has announced that it will introduce new health programmes in the state, to facilitate fair financing of healthcare services and provide access to quality healthcare and financial risk protection to the people of the state.
The Executive Secretary of GoHealth, Dr. Abubakar Musa, told journalists during a Quarterly Media Engagement in Gombe that the agency was about to introduce the Tertiary Institution Students Health Programme and the travellers’ Health Insurance Scheme.
Dr. Musa said the agency was in the process of signing a Memorandum of Understanding with the Gombe State Transport Company, Gombe-Line, to provide Health Insurance coverage for travellers using the transport service to take care of accidents and emergencies.
Similarly, Dr. Musa said the agency was engaging the management of the Ministry of Higher Education to enrol students of the tertiary institutions in the state into the programme. He said modalities were being worked out to ensure that the programme takes off before the end of the year.
According to him, the Management of the Gombe State University has already keyed into the programme and committed to enrol all its students in the next academic session.
“There is a Medical Levy that students normally pay to those institutions at the beginning of every academic session and that is the medical levy that will now be channelled to GoHealth, to be able to provide that service. It’s not going to be a new charge per session on the students, but rather a better utilisation of the Medical Levy that the students are already paying to their institutions and a guarantee to more quality service,” said Dr. Musa.
He said GoHealth, which was launched by Governor Yahaya June 3, 2021, had recorded successes in ensuring the attainment of Universal Health Coverage.
The Gombe State owned Programme is being realized through the sustainable pooling of resources to finance healthcare services, as well as improve access to quality healthcare provision with financial risk protection.
Meanwhile, Dr. Musa said the Gombe State social health programme had begun the implementation of the second phase of the Basic Health Care Fund, where over 40,000 poor and vulnerable have been enrolled.
He said that was made possible with the introduction of the new digital tool, which the agency developed to identify the poor and the vulnerable in Gombe State.
According to Dr. Musa, the digital tool had been used to select the poorest among the over 100 thousand poor and vulnerable identified in the field. He said more of the poor and vulnerable would be registered when the Equity Fund from the Government was released.
“Just last week, I am very pleased to inform you that we met with His excellency, the Governor of Gombe State, Alhaji Muhammadu Inuwa Yahaya, who has given his commitment to the release of the 1% of the Equity Fund, as well as the Basic Health Care Provision Fund counterpart fund. A memo has already been submitted to that effect and we believe in the next couple of days or weeks, we should have that money released to the agency. That will enable us to enrol additional poor and vulnerable,” said Dr. Musa.
Similarly, he said the informal sector programme had equally enrolled over 1,000. In order to achieve Universal Health Coverage, the Gombe State Government has made the programme mandatory by law for the residents of the state by the year 2030.
The programme is segmented into the formal and the informal Sector, with the formal sector covering the Public sector, that is for staff of the state and local governments, while the organised private sector consists of organisations with a minimum of 5 staff, as well as Students of tertiary institutions, Pensioners from 65 years and above, Children under five, Pregnant Women, Widows, IDPs and the Physically Challenged.
So far, the GoHealth Scheme has enrolled about 80 thousand beneficiaries, out of which, 42, 974 are in the Formal Sector, 52 are in the Informal Sector and 40 thousand are under the Equity, Basic Health Care Provision Fund.
The beneficiaries of the Scheme have been given access to quality healthcare service through the primary healthcare providers of their choice in all the programmes offered by GoHealth. 118 Health Care Providers have been accredited as primary, secondary and tertiary providers for the Formal and Informal Sectors.
Out of the number, 68 are private facilities, 50 are public facilities, 55 are primary providers, 59 are secondary providers and 4 are tertiary providers. There are 133 Health Care Providers, which have been accredited as primary and secondary healthcare providers for the Equity Programme, 114 of them are primary healthcare providers, while 19 others are secondary healthcare providers
GoHealth has also established a 24/7 call and contact centre, to ensure quality health care service to the beneficiaries and to address complaints and enquiries.
