The National Health Insurance Scheme has met for final adoption of the guiding document for coordination and regulation of health insurance in Nigeria.
The long-awaited stakeholder meeting which is another milestone in the ongoing reforms in the National Health Insurance Scheme and the health insurance ecosystem in Nigeria to fast track the collective quest to attain Universal Health Coverage in Nigeria.
The Executive Secretary and Chief Executive Officer of the NHIS, Professor Muhammed Sambo, said that the NHIS was established with the mandate to ensure financial access to quality health services for all Nigerians through health insurance.
“NHIS commenced with the coverage of the federal civil servants and their dependants on the 6th of June 2005. The subsequent difficulty in expanding coverage due to non-mandatory participation as provided in the extant NHIS law and the recognition of the need to cover the large informal sector in order to “leave no-one behind” culminated in the idea of decentralising health insurance to the sub-national level. In 2015, the NHIS in collaboration with representatives of the States, Development Partners and other stakeholders developed a conceptual framework for this decentralisation. A memo was presented at the 58th Emergency National Council on Health on decentralising health insurance implementation in Nigeria to States and it was unanimously adopted,” Professor Sambo said.
He said that as a result of various challenges, including leadership crisis, the NHIS was not able to provide adequate coordination and support for stakeholders for several years.
Professor Sambo noted that ”there is a new a new Result Oriented NHIS which is ready to reposition the health insurance ecosystem to focus on the collective drive towards the attainment of UHC.
For the attainment of UHC in Nigeria which is in alignment with President Muhammadu Buhari Health Sector Next Level Agenda requires an effective framework for coordination, integration and harmonisation of efforts of all stakeholders in the health insurance space in Nigeria. This is the basis of the concept of Health Insurance Under One Roof (HIUOR). Health Insurance Under One Roof was widely discussed at a three-day workshop which was attended by participants from State Health Insurance /Contributory Agencies across the nation, the National Health Insurance Scheme, Development Partners and Civil Society Organisations among other stakeholders”.
Professor Sambo also said that after series of meeting and deliberations, a draft policy document for Health Insurance Under One Roof (HIUOR) has been produced.
“You and I now have the all-important task of validating this document before it is finalised, printed and distributed. I therefore encourage you to treat this task with all seriousness as I believe that working together through Health Insurance Under One Roof will fast track our progress towards ensuring quality and affordable healthcare for all Nigerians,” Professor Sambo urged the stakeholders.
In his address, the Nigerian Minister of Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire, said that once the document is ready, implementation would not be a challenge.
The Chairman of State Health Insurance Agencies, Dr. Adeniyi Ogini, said that each state SHIS has its own laws and operational modalities and had started to record impressive success in coverage rate as at the beginning of this year, 2020 when the leadership of NHIS, recognising the poor coordination and regulation of the industry came up with the policy of Health Insurance Under One Roof which was a welcome development in the industry.
“While congratulating the ES, management and staff of the NHIS for this step in the right direction in regulating and coordinating health insurance activities in Nigeria, I have the mandate of members of the Forum of CEOs of SSHIAs to draw our attention to some grey areas in the draft policy which were raised at the level of the TWG and by individual states at different fora but which are yet to be attended to. Consequently, these grey areas will be presented in this meeting with a view to resolving them before the policy document is validated,“ Dr. Ogini said.
He said that he hopes that the issues raised would be objectively deliberated on by all stakeholders present and the suggested amendments adopted in order to ensure smooth operationalization of the policy.
Also speaking on behalf of UN agencies, Dr. Francis Nwachukwu of the World Health Organisation said that Nigeria has shown commitments towards attaining Universal Health Coverage.
He congratulated Nigeria on the efforts it is making.
The theme of the meeting was “ Health Insurance Under One Roof As a Mechanism To Attaining Universal Health Coverage”.
Mercy |Chukwudiebere
