The Executive Secretary of Nasarawa State Health Insurance Agency (NASHIA) Dr. Yahaya Bawa-Ubam, says they are targeting to enroll 500, 000 people into the scheme by 2027.
The Executive Secretary stated this during an interactive season with journalists on Thursday in Lafia, Nasarawa State.
Bawa-Ubam who was recently appointed as the executive secretary, said over 218, 000 persons have enrolled into the scheme currently and are benefiting from the quality out-of-pocket healthcare services.
He added that the beneficiaries were registered under different packages such as public sector, informal sector, vulnerable and students among others.
He said since the programme was inaugurated in 2019, a lot of the enrolling had benefited from medical services with little challenges which they are working to address.
Bawa-Ubam also used the medium to call on healthcare providers to be professional in thier conduct and give thier enrolling the desired services in order to increase confidence of the people in the scheme.
He commended Dr Gaza Gmamna, immediate-past Executive Secretary of the agency and his team for the good work they had done and promised to improve on thier achievement.
Bawa-Ubam also lauded Gov. Abdullahi Sule for appointing him to head the agency and attributed the successes recorded so far to the support by the governor.
He however, expressed worry that some civil whose money is being deducted for the scheme had refused to enroll.
“The benefits of health insurance scheme to ensuring a healthy society cannot be over emphasied, hence the need for all civil servants to enroll for thier benefits and that of thier 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 added.
He further said that the agency was aware of the challenges enrolling are facing towards accessing healthcare services in some medical facilities and promised to tackle them.
He also threatened that any medical facility found culpable of providing substandard services would be delisted.
He therefore assured that the agency would continue to strive hard towards achieving universal health coverage and appeal to the media to help propagate their activities. (NAN).