By Anthony Otaru, Abuja
The Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Health Insurance Scheme (HIS) has begun the training for community mobilisation officers of the National Orientation Agency (NOA), on intervention programmes in Abuja.
This is part of the collaborative agreement signed in August between the FHIS and the NOA, aimed at increasing the number of enrollees by raising awareness for the scheme.
Declaring the training workshop open at the NOA headquarters in Abuja, the Acting Secretary, Health and Human Services Secretariat (HHSS), Dr. Mohammed Kawu, commended the initiatives of both the NOA and the FHIS, describing it as a family union.
He promised that the health secretariat would continue to support the FHIS and its programmes towards attaining Universal Health Coverage (UHC).
Kawu, who was represented by the Director, Medical & Diagnostic in the Health Secretariat, Dr. Abubakar Ahmadu, said: “I sincerely believe that the choice and collaboration that is existing today between the Health and Human Service Secretariat as well as the National Orientation Agency is geared towards achieving one common goal, which is to enlighten the populace on the need to enrol with the FCT Health Insurance Scheme.”
Kawu further said the pros of enrolling with the FHIS far out ways the cons more so that it is going to save people from out of pocket spending.
Speaking, the Director-General, NOA, Dr. Garba Abari, represented by the Director, Human Resource Management, Kehinde Ogunkuade, said one of the mandates of the Agency is to ensure that government programmes and policies are better understood by the public. It also helps in the attainment of the Universal Health Coverage, as one of government’s top priority adding that NOA is just playing its role to ensure that the UHC is achieved.
“With our platforms and spread, we are supporting the FHIS to ensure that their programmes get to the grassroots to achieve Universal Health Coverage,” he said.
On how the NOA intends to ensure that the collaboration worked effectively, Ogunkuade said NOA has staff in all the 774 local government areas in Nigeria. “We have strategies, we use advocacy, community engagements, meeting with the locals and addressing them on what to do, we have a theatre for development, and each community has its own style of meetings, and we are familiar with it because we speak all their languages.”
The Director, FCT Health Insurance Scheme Dr. Mohammed Ahmed-Danfulani, expressed optimism that at the end of the workshop, NOA community officers will be able to understand the FHIS packages, and also to sell the idea to all FCT residents in the long run.
He said: “We want to take health insurance to the grassroots because one of the important programmes we are going into is that of Basic Healthcare Provision Fund (BHCPF) that looks critically at how to bridge healthcare of the have-nots in the rural areas. This will be enhanced by the National Orientation Agency that is why we are training their staff so that they can have a better understanding of the programme, so that they can help us carry this information to the rural communities in the FCT.”
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