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Cost Barriers & Health Financing |
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A National Health Insurance Scheme As part of democratic reforms adopted in 1999, the Nigerian government introduced a universal health insurance program, the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) in 2005. For a nation that had gone for its forty-five year sovereignty without such a program, it was a commendable, if long overdue, public health initiative.
Under an employer-based pre-salary deduction system, NHIS mandates coverage for all formal sector workers like civil servants and employees of medium sized businesses. Since 2006 enrollment has been growing in consonance with the emergence of numerous government-accredited health maintenance organizations (HMOs) that administer the scheme. Unfortunately, even as more employers become NHIS compliant to the benefit of their employees, a wide coverage gap persists.
Coverage Gap Many citizens will not benefit from an employer-based coverage system. The uncovered are a host of self-employed and informal sector workers (e.g. farmers, traders, vocational workers etc). Recognizing this problem, the NHIS advises such citizens to form member-managed Social Health Insurance Programs (SHIPs).
Community Health Financing We are proponents of SHIPs in settings like Nigeria with large numbers in the informal sector workforce. However, we note that many informal sector workers are either unfamiliar with the concept of prepaid health insurance or lack the management skills required to operate de-facto managed care organizations.
One of our aims at Obala is to build capacity for management of community health insurance programs that allow collective advocacy for those as yet left out of the NHIS mandates.
Encouragingly, awareness of the need to fill this gap is growing and at least two international funding agencies have committed major funds toward this in partnership with at least one private sector health insurance company in Nigeria.
We will recruit informal sector workers into a community overseen SHIP. Obala will work to subsidize care of children in the scheme aged 6-15 years old. (The NHIS “Children Under 5 Program” will care for under-5 children of NHIS-enrolled parents). Continued participation will be incentivized via donor-driven subsidies/matching contributions. Currently, we are subsidizing the health care needs of the child victims of violence and abuse rescued by Child’s Rights and Rehabiliation Network (CRARN) Eket, Nigeria.
So how can you help? The cost of basic healthcare via the capitation model used by most providers in Nigeria is less than $4.76/month.
A standard benefit package entitles a beneficiary to: · Out-patient care · Essential prescription drugs and diagnostics · 15 days of in-patient stay · Antenatal/ maternity care/postnatal · Preventive care (e.g. childhood immunization) · Specialist consultation by referral · Vision care · Preventive dental care
You can make a donation:
$600 guarantees care for 20 children including emergencies for a whole year
$300 guarantees health care for 10 children in a year
$100 subsidizes life-saving emergency care for an as yet un-enrolled child
$50 can subsidize health care as above for one child for one year.
$ ?? no amount is too small.
Project Management
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© Obala 2006 |
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Obalafoundation.Org |
