The Nigeria Solidarity Support Fund (NSSF), a non-profit organisation, has identified three major gaps in the implementation of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS).
The NSSF also urges closing of the gaps to make the scheme more impactful.
The NSSF Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Dr Fejiro Chinye-Nwoko, made this known in an interview with News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos.
“There are three major challenges facing the NHIS, and this is affecting the effectiveness of its operations.
“The first gap we noticed is the issue of financing; financing for health is not enough.
“Government supports and provides the back end of financing health insurance but it is still not enough.
“We know that the fiscal space is not enough for every sector; so, the health sector is also suffering,” Chinye-Nwoko said.
She also said that Nigeria’s health expenditure was still about five per cent of the entire national budget.
“We should be getting up to 15 per cent or 20 per cent.
“This means that there is not enough money to fund health insurance,” the NSSF boss said.
The managing director also said that NHIS was being burdened by some people taking drugs from the scheme for their unqualified relatives.
She said that NHIS pooled funds were being over utilised by such people.
“What that means is that we have cases of people coming to take drugs that they don’t need.
“For example, I am not hypertensive but my mother or my father or one my relations is hypertensive; instead of registering that person so that both of us pay, I will rather take drugs from the NHIS on their behalf.
“By doing so, I am accessing care for someone, and it is not paid for. I collect drugs and give out.
“That way, we are giving out more than we are pooling in,” she said.
She also identified inadequate operationalisation of the NHIS as a major challenge.
She said that there was need for the scheme to go beyond manual operations.
“At present, registering for national health insurance is done manually, but to open a bank account can be done on your phone.
“ You can open an account with a fintech without going into the bank.
“ Why should we not be able to register for health insurance on our phones? We are still very manual in health insurance registration.
“The process is still very rigorous. People have to go to a particular centre, and that process is not well known to the average Nigerian.” (NAN)
