Attacks on NHIS not healthy
This must be the motivation for the recent media campaign targeting the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), perhaps designed to discredit the leadership and management of this very laudable health initiative of the federal government. Without even getting authentic and up to date information on the NHIS and its operations thus far, the House of […]
This must be the motivation for the recent media campaign targeting the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), perhaps designed to discredit the leadership and management of this very laudable health initiative of the federal government. Without even getting authentic and up to date information on the NHIS and its operations thus far, the House of Representatives was recently almost stampeded into a wild goose chase on the basis of unfounded allegations and other contrived scenarios depicting a mismanaged and poor performing NHIS.
The euphoria of providing Nigerians with health insurance through which they could access health services at a more affordable subsidized rate was fed by the success stories of similar schemes in Europe and the US bandied around without the slightest regard for either the unavoidable teething problems or the local peculiarities, including the notorious Nigerian factor. Thus, the NHIS established by Decree 35 of 1999, became operational in 2005 but in 2006 was already bogged down by managerial as well as institutional and statutory problems culminating in the bold intervention of President Obasanjo who summarily swept away the beleaguered head of the NHIS and decisively set the stage for a new beginning, which today has proved fortuitous and corrective.
From the 2006 scenario of stalemated interaction with major partners like health maintenance organizations and health care facilities, disillusioned enrolees, unsatisfactory services as well as in-house crisis, among others, the NHIS is today not only being increasingly appreciated by more Nigerians as it steadily resolves its multi-dimensional encumbrances but is the recipient of favourable assessment reports from reputable international organizations such as USAID, recognition as best in Africa by the International Social Security Association (ISSA) and even a privileged place on President Goodluck Jonathan’s Facebook page listing achievements of his administration!
Incredibly, the remarkable transformation of the NHIS, from moribund to marvellous, took place under the supervision of a certain Dr Waziri Dogo-Mohammed, who was the human element in President Obasanjo’s epochal intervention in 2006 as National Coordinator and in 2007, earning appointment as substantive Executive Secretary, a testimony to his qualification and impactful leadership of the scheme. But not only has he been the target of numerous Nigerian Factor intrigues, including one that took judicial intervention to stave off, he is in fact more so today apparently in order to prejudice his chances for re-appointment, seeing the hatchet job in The Nation edition of January 23 where a hired writer sought to resurrect what he erroneously called “the forgotten Senate probe of NHIS”- it was the lower chamber that was being instigated into probing NHIS not the senate.
Amazingly, the writer saw nothing but “rot, ineptitude and stagnation” in the NHIS and lamented that the probe did not take place because Dr Dogo spent money on “advocacy and self-publicity.” His article was wholly devoted to showing absurdly that NHIS had its best outing prior to Dr Dogo’s appointment as its ES, cheap propaganda that is discredited by the history of the NHIS as briefly recounted here. The same issues of coverage of federal workers, NHIS efforts to widen the scope of its coverage to the poor, the NHIS/MDG project and even the recent launching of the community health insurance scheme in Isanlu, Kogi State were rehashed and laced with unsubstantiated allegations of mismanagement in this latest media diatribe against Dr Dogo. Professor Lambo as immediate past board chairman himself knows the objective criteria that preceded selection of the Isanlu scheme just to launch what is intended to be replicated all over the country and should resent any insinuation of hijack by NHIS.
The NHIS is but a regulatory body, so it is mischievous to heap blame on it for matters of implementation which is the job of HMOs. Moreover, like all insurance schemes, NHIS depends a lot on contributions of enrolees, and much as we may want every Nigerian to benefit, the bill for that has to be settled. The scheme also lacks constitutional guarantee. These explains why the scheme is voluntary and why not all federal workers have enrolled and also, why the poor need more than wishful thinking to benefit from NHIS. None of these is attributable to any failure of NHIS or Dr. Dogo.
Indeed, under Dr Dogo, new initiatives aimed at addressing these constraints have been introduced and implemented such as community health insurance, voluntary contributors’ health insurance, the tertiary institution students’ health insurance, the organized private sector health insurance and the retirees’ health insurance among others. There is simply no denying that the NHIS is moving systematically towards meeting the aspirations of Nigerians and even setting precedents for best practices and innovative initiatives that other nations are already emulating. Dr` Dogo should just ignore the detractors and carry on, confident in the knowledge that his records cannot be mutilated by self-serving propagandists.
Godspower Douglas , a health official, wrote from Calabar