Health Insurance: NHIS Unable To Cover At Least 10% Of The Population
The Guild of Medical Directors has expressed its dissatisfaction over the inability of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) to cover at least 10 percent of Nigerians, adding that 70 percent of the population still patronize unorthodox private healthcare centers.
President of the Guild, Dr. Raymond Kuti, the President of the Guild, disclosed this information after the inaugural leadership and business summit of the Guild and revealed that the medical economics of Nigeria in 2021 displayed that approximately N7,500,000,000 had been spent on medical tourism by Nigerians.
Dr. Kuti stated that healthcare practitioners and their patients have always constantly been at the receiving end of unfulfilled promises and underachievements by policy makers and governmental stakeholders as healthcare services are inaccessible to patients, and the appropriate funding is unavailable to private healthcare facility owners.
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He also added that currently, the lack of modern equipment as well as the inadequate welfare benefits that medical personnel are being provided can be seen as the major cause of the brain drain that is being experienced in the health sector.
“It is stating the obvious that our health sector is rapidly and continuously haemorrhaging. The medical health economics of Nigeria in 2021 was approximately seven trillion, five hundred billion naira which was spent on medical tourism by Nigerians. 70 percent of Nigerians still patronise the private healthcare centres, many of which are of the unorthodox category. Nearly all the private patients pay out of their pocket as the NHIS and HMOS have not been able to cover 10 percent of the populace.”
According to him, in order to forestall such anomalies, “the guild is set to launch and sustain constructive dialogue with the policy makers in the legislative and executive arms of the government with a view to achieving win-win solutions in the numerous challenges in the health sector. Reduce the volume of medical tourism to the barest minimum and actively work at upgrading the private health sector such that it becomes the medical hub of the continent.”
