‘Health insurance coverage still remains very poor’

Stakeholders in the health sector have lamented that health insurance coverage still remain poor.

They spoke at a Strategic Stakeholders Meeting on Draft National Policy on Incentivising the Health Service Industry and Healthcare Investments, hosted by the Healthcare Federation of Nigeria (HFN) in Lagos.

The meeting, which was tagged “Forging a new paradigm,” discussed the health insurance coverage in the country.

It had the Chairman Senate committee on health, Ibrahim Yahaya Oloriegbe, who also stated the reasons strengthening structures in the health sector are multidimensional. As it has been said, health insurance should be mandatory for all. However, due to the poor coverage with less than four per cent of population, there is room for wider coverage.

During the presentations from various health care providers, challenges were discussed and how solutions for areas such as the biomed engineering sector, nursing, mental health, healthcare business network could be made.

On the best approach in solving the problems the healthcare providers brought to the table, Oloriegbe said: “Human beings are there to have problems and to solve problems. Essentially, that is why we come together to have government and to live as human beings. In terms of approaches, first when you identify a problem, you identify appropriate strategies to be able to solve them, which is what we have done here. We have had discussions; we come up with various approaches.

“So, when you say the best, it depends on which one of the challenges. One, we agree on some that require new policy and we set up modalities for such policies. We identify some that require new law, which will be to regulate to guide whatever it will be and we identify some that require multi-sectorial collaborations and coming together.”

By Wale Otegbade

https://thenationonlineng.net/health-insurance-coverage-still-remains-very-poor/