The Chief Medical Director of Rock Foundation Hospital, Awka Dr Chukwudi Njelita has called on the Federal Government to implement universal health coverage policy where health insurance will be totally free.
Njelita who made the call in Awka said the number of out-of-pocket patients in the country was alarming in spite of the existence of various health insurance schemes.
He said though the awareness on health insurance was high, the subscription level among Nigerians was low due to inability of most people to pay insurance premiums especially rural and low income families.
He lauded the Federal and Anambra Governments for their effort to bring healthcare closer to the people through health insurance but observed that enrollment was still poor
According to him, the subscription level for health insurance is still low, I can say that while the awareness level is as high as 80 percent, enrollment is about 20 percent judging by what we do here.
“Out-of-pocket patients are still very much more than insurance patients because insurance patients are known as contained in the list but out-of-pocket patients are in the record and those who do not even come to the hospital.
“The Federal Government has to step in because many people are unable to pay premiums which qualify them for insurance services, people who are not civil servants constitute the greater number and they are not in the scheme, it will take about N4 trillion to enrol 140 million people,” he said.
Njelita said healthcare delivery system was becoming expensive in Nigeria and called for government support to enable operators to render services at affordable cost.
He said the brain drain in the sector may not end soon unless the remuneration for health workers became better and the capital for setting a facility became cheaper .
“Cost of service delivery is increasing by the day considering the cost of medicines, equipment and wages of health workers which must be enough to keep them in the hospital.
“Most medicines and diagnostic equipment are imported, so their cost is affected by the foreign exchange values.
“We also have the problem of high cost of energy either with diesel or the distribution company, these are some of the reasons running private hospitals has become difficult and many have shut down,” he said.
