The Gombe State Contributory Healthcare Management Agency, GoHealth), has encouraged residents of the state to take advantage of the scheme to prevent out of pocket spending.
The call was made by the Executive Secretary of the scheme, Dr Abubakar Musa, during a one-day Orientation Workshop for journalists on GoHealth activities in Gombe.
Dr. Musa said, “GoHealth is a contributory healthcare scheme by the Gombe State Government to ensure that all residents of the state have access to quality health care services at an affordable cost and without suffering financial hardship.
“The workshop was organised to improve the capacity of journalists on the achievements and the challenges of the scheme, so that they would be better placed to carry out the advocacy well.”
The Executive Secretary of the scheme said GoHealth was well-positioned to actualise the dreams of Governor Muhammadu Inuwa Yahaya in attaining Universal Health Coverage.
In the same vein, Mr. Alhassan Yahya, of SAIF Advocacy Foundation, urged journalists in the state to join the advocacy training and enlighten the public more on the benefits of being enrolled in the programme.
Mr. Yahya said the benefits of the scheme were enormous and enough to spare them wasting money on medication that they could use on other things.
He called for more sensitisation for the public, targeting the private sector to enrol on the programme.
Presenting the overview of the programme, the Director, Planning, Research and Statistics of GoHealth, Mr. Tanimu Umar said GoHealth had enrolled 64,646 beneficiaries the in the state, out of which 39, 060 are in the formal sector programme, where state civil servants and their dependants are, while another 25, 565 are beneficiaries into the Basic Health Care Provision Fund, BHCPF/Equity programme last year.
Mr. Umar said 22 beneficiaries had been enrolled on the informal sector and another 40,000 beneficiaries were expected to be enrolled on the programme this year.
Other successes recorded by the programme are the accreditation of 109 healthcare providers, out of which 61 are Private healthcare providers, while the remaining 48 are public health providers, which are 52 Primary Health Care Providers, 53 Secondary Health Care Providers and 4 Tertiary healthcare institutions.
