By Asmau Ahmad
The Kaduna State Contributory Health Management Authority said it is providing free basic healthcare services to 124,858 poor and vulnerable people in the state.
The Director-General of the agency, Abubabkar Hassan, made this known when members of the Open Government Partnership and Technical Working Group on Social Protection paid him a familiarisation visit in Kaduna on Thursday.
He said that of the figure, 79,329 were accessing the basic minimum package of health services as defined by the National Health Insurance Scheme, while 45,529 were enrolled under the Basic Healthcare Provision Fund.
Hassan explained that for those enrolled under the BHCPF, the state government provides 25 per cent counterpart fund, while NHIS provides 75 per cent from the BHCPF based on the defined benefit package.
The director-general said that the authority had so far enrolled a total of 514, 265 into the state health insurance scheme.
He noted that 382,593 were enrolled under the formal sector, 3,713 under the informal sector, 986 under the Tertiary Students Health Insurance Programme and 2,115 under the pensioner’s scheme.
Hassan explained that the scheme was designed to provide access to quality, affordable, equitable healthcare services to all residents of the state without financial risk.
According to him, the goal is to achieve Universal Health Coverage, improve the poor health indices in the state and reduce out-of-pocket expenditure for health services.
He thanked the body for the visit, stressing that working with citizens groups would create the needed awareness and understanding of the scheme and in the long run, increase enrolment, particularly in the informal sector.
He said, “We will work with you to create the needed awareness on the various health insurance packages being provided by KADCHMA.
“We will also look forward to getting feedback from you on some of the concerns and perceptions of the beneficiaries of our insurance scheme.”
Earlier, Mr. Philip Yatai, Citizens’ Co-Chair of the TWG, explained that the objective of the visit was to create familiarity between the agency and civil society organisations working on the social protection space.
Yatai added that the visit was also to strengthen the synergy between the Civil Society Organisations and implementing agencies of social protection programmes.
“We are here to also receive updates on the activities of the agency to enable the CSOs to effectively track the implementation of the health insurance scheme at the delivery points.
“The health insurance programme is one of the high impact social protection programmes that enable the poor and vulnerable to access basic healthcare services without financial barriers,” he said.
