By; ALEX UANGBAOJE, Kaduna
As political activities continue in Kaduna State, ahead of the 2023 general elections, Kaduna citizens have resolved to demand politicians to pay for health insurance enrollment for the poor during campaigns.
Participants at a one-day meeting of different categories of citizens stakeholders, tagged “Support the scale-up engagement on the contributory health scheme to increase the informal and other marginalized groups” organized by Kaduna Maternal Accountability Mechanism, Ward Development Committee in collaboration with Kaduna State Contributory Health Management Authority (KADCHMA) with support from Partnership to Engage, Reform and Learn – Engaged Citizens (ECP) and Lafiya Programme, made the resolve at the weekend.
The is coming in view of the attitude of most politicians who make a lots of promises during campaigns to get votes, but never return to fulfill them after winning elections.
According to them, when politicians visit their communities for campaigns henceforth, they would ask them how many people they have been able to support to enroll for the State Contributory Health Scheme and how many are they willing to enroll.
This they said, will form the basis for which they would determine who to vote for in the forthcoming general election.
Kaduna Contributory Health Management Authority (KADCHMA), has so far enrolled a total of 496,725, and the informal sector only accounts for 6,292 while the formal sector is 353, 488, students in tertiary institutions, 9, 964, the vulnerables, 79,329 and beneficiaries of the Basic Health Care Provision Fund (BHCPF), 50, 648, since inception in 2018.
The meeting according to the organizers, is aimed at building on the existing support on community structures sensitization in partnership with LAFIYA Programme and other partners on the contributory health scheme and BHCPF scheme.
To improve on informal sector participation especially women and other normally excluded groups enrolment in the contributory health scheme to reduce out of pocket expenditure and to also contribute to an increase in the number of enrollees accessing health care services in the state especially, the normally excluded group.
Addressing the participants who represented various groups, Co-chair of KADMAM, Mallam Mustapha Jumare, said as representative of the citizens, KADMAM, owns it as a responsibility to sensitize them to believe and have confidence in the government facilities and ensure they enroll in contributory health insurance scheme because the scheme is in their benefit.
The Co-chair, who was represented by the Secretary, Isa Gidado, noted that public hospitals in the state have the best quality of services, staff and equipment, the more reason residents in needs to have confidence in the services of public hospitals in the state.
He admonished them to go back to their various communities to convince their people to enroll for the insurance scheme, urging those who have already enroll to help share their experiences with their communities.
The Director General of KADCHMA, Abubakar Hassan, said the agency is working to make it easy for every citizens to be able to pay for the enrollment by making the payment process flexible.
“We are working to ensure we ease these payment processes by making it a bit flexible where you can pay for one year subscription in a space of two months, meaning that at certain point of your contribution where you pay up to 60 to 75%, you will be able to access services knowing fully well within two months you would have been able to pay up all of it.
“Right now we are working to bring flexible option that allows citizens of Kaduna State to be able to pay a minimum of N200 daily contribution into their contributory wallet that allows them to be able to see what they are contributing. So we are building trust system around it so that you will be seeing, we will be seeing and we can also track from the point where you have started enjoying these services”. He explained.
In his remarks, State Team Lead of PERL, Abel Adejo, said as those in the informal sector, there is need for them to understand the benefits of the scheme so they can enroll and begin to enjoy the services.
“PERL and Lafiya, want to ensure that majority of those in the informal sector are able to enroll. As those in the informal sector, how many of you have registered, it is important that you know the benefits of this.
“When the people are within the communities and services are not being provided, what are the blockages, we are here to ensure that the agency will address all the issues so the people can enjoy the services”. He added.
Citizens Groups represented at the meeting were; Market Associations, Small and Medium Scale Enterprises, Tricycle and Motorcycle unions, Kaduna Chamber of Commerce, NNPC Retired Staff Association, Ward Development Committees (WDCs), People Living with Disability, KADMAM members, Women in Trade and Agric, Association of Artisans, among others.
