Nasarawa health insurance agency targets 500,000 enrollees by 2027

The Executive Secretary of Nasarawa State Health Insurance Agency (NASHIA), Dr Yahaya Bawa-Ubam, says the agency is targeting to enroll 500,000 people into the scheme by 2027. The Executive Secretary said this during an interactive session with journalists on Thursday in Lafia.

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Bawa-Ubam, who was recently appointed as the executive secretary, said over 218,000 persons have enrolled into
the scheme and are benefitting from quality out-of-pocket healthcare services. He added that the beneficiaries registered under different packages such as public sector, informal sector, vulnerable and students, among others.

He said since the inauguration of the programme in 2019, enrollees have been benefitting from medical services with little challenges. He urged healthcare providers to be professional in their conduct and offer the desired services to increase confidence of the people in the scheme.

He commended Dr Gaza Gmamna, the immediate-past Executive Secretary of the agency and his team for the good work they had done and promised to improve on the achievement.

He, however, expressed worry that some civil servants have refused to enroll into the scheme, saying “the benefits of health insurance to ensuring a healthy society cannot be overemphasized, hence the need for all civil servants to enroll for their benefit and family members.

“Your money is being deducted already, so, either come to our headquarters in Lafia to enroll or go to any of our office nearest to your location.”

He further said that the agency is aware of the challenges enrollees face toward accessing healthcare services in some medical facilities and promised to tackle them.

He, therefore, assured that the agency would continue to strive toward achieving universal health coverage and appealed to the media to propagate the scheme’s activities.

NAN/Wumi