Universal Health Coverage holds the key to unlocking the door for equitable, qualitative, and accessible healthcare for all without financial hardship.
This was made known by Dr. Abiodun Oyeneyin, the Director-General, Ondo State Contributory Health Commission, as a panelist at the 40th Annual General Meeting and Scientific Conference of the Association of Public Health Physicians of Nigeria held in Akure, Ondo State.
In his address, Dr. Oyeneyin posited, that ill health is a major cause of poverty. In contrast, poverty, on the other hand, contributes significantly to ill health and thus a barrier to accessing healthcare when needed. Health insurance therefore protects from unexpected, high medical costs that often make individuals or households poor or further pushed down the poverty line due to out-of-pocket expenditures.
Referencing the Ondo State experience, Dr. Oyeneyin who has been in the helms of affairs of the Commission in the past four years, said that the healthcare landscape of the state has changed with the commencement of the health insurance scheme. The Commission is currently implementing two equity health insurance schemes and a formal sector scheme boasting 42,960 pregnant women and children under 5, who have benefitted from its Abiya-mo Maternal and Child Health Insurance Scheme, with the premium fully paid by the Ondo State Government. In the past two years, 50,354 vulnerable persons across 203 wards within the state have access to care under the Basic Healthcare Provision Fund Programme tagged
ILERA-LORO Scheme.
The Orange Health Insurance Scheme for the formal sector currently has 96,952 public servants and their dependants accessing care in both government and private hospitals across the state.
Dr. Oyeneyin concluded that the adoption of health insurance in the state has provided some degree of financial risk protection to about 200.000 households. He therefore
implored all country residents to take advantage of the various health insurance schemes to avert catastrophic health expenditures in the current ailing global economy.
ODCHS … naira wise, health smart
