18th July, 2014
Suru Avoseh, the chairman, Lagos State House of Assembly Committee on Health, said on Friday the committee was proposing a bill for the state’s health insurance scheme.
He made this known to NAN in Lagos on the sideline of the ongoing Lagos State chapter of the Nigerian Medical Association’s 54th Annual General Meeting (AGM).
NAN reports that the theme of the AGM is “Doctors in Administrative Positions: Challenges and Prospects.”
“What we need is to form a pool so that every contributor will get the best service that he or she wants.
“We are proposing a bill and already had a sort of stakeholders’ input in it so that we get the input of professionals in the bill.
“We are still tailoring it in the form of health insurance.”
Avoseh said that involvement of the stakeholders was to align the bill with the universal health coverage approved by the World Health Organisation (WHO).
He said that Nigeria was one of the signatories to the universal health coverage plan which states that citizens must access health facilities without payment at the point of getting that service.
“From the developed world where we get our health system, government doesn’t budget for health, it is the insurance.
“But, because of the way our insurance scheme is structured, people are skeptical.
“So, we are trying to make sure that we do it right and that is why we are getting the involvement of professionals that will structure the bill in a form that those who would subscribe to it will get the best from it.
“The doctors and all health workers will not be thinking ‘What would be my benefit? What would be my interest? What would be my take home?’
“It is already there depending on the way you work. Citizens must access health facilities without payment at the point of getting that service.
“And somebody must pay, so you must pay but you pay indirectly, in the form of insurance.
“So that’s what the bill is all about, just to assist, to let everybody come on board and form a pool where we can get funds for certain services.
“The money couldn’t be for the provision of infrastructure, but mainly for the services.”