- Targets 450,000 residents
Giving birth in Oyo State now comes with ease and some form of rest of mind for many of the residents of the state. The hurdles of accessing quality and affordable healthcare services have been addressed through the provision of a mandatory social health insurance scheme initiated by the state government for all residents.
The introduction of the health scheme 18 months ago, under the Oyo State Health Insurance Agency, popularly known as OYSHIA, has brought a great sigh of relief to many pregnant women and children in the state, particularly as the scheme provides social and financial risk protection for them. The various packages of the scheme cover both the formal and informal sectors, including famers who have been provided a trade by barter approach to enroll into the scheme.
OYSHIA, based on a visit to some of the health facilities in the state, is ensuring that no woman dies while giving birth and that no woman is denied information or health care that can save their lives and the lives of their unborn children. The scheme seeks to achieve Universal Health Coverage in the state by critically addressing those challenges fueling Nigeria’s poor health indices, especially maternal and infant mortality. Under the scheme, which had been made compulsory by the state government, civil servant enrollees are expected, from level 1 to level 12, to pay the Standard Plan of N8, 000 as premium per annum inclusive of N200 registration/service fee while those from level 13 and above will be on the Standard Plus Plan of N13,500 premium per annum.
According to experts, if pursued vigorously by getting many to enroll into the scheme, especially those in the informal sector, the health indicators of women and children in the state will improve as a result of increased access to healthcare as well as quality of service delivery.
Already, Nigeria has distressing indices in maternal and child health which, many said, must not be allowed to continue. Every single day, Nigeria loses about 145 women of childbearing age, making her the second largest contributor to the maternal mortality rate in the world, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund.
Available data shows that over 60 per cent of pregnant women in Nigeria deliver at home rather than at a health facility, owing to lack of fund to access healthcare. A study carried out by researchers from Columbia University in Northern Nigeria found that the reasons most pregnant women had little or no contact with the health care system were majorly as a result of lack of money and distance of the health facility.
Even with the launch of the National Health Insurance Scheme in 2005, which currently has less than 10 per cent coverage, most vulnerable population still lack access to basic health services, which social and financial risk protection should provide, because they cannot afford it.
The above barriers are what OYSHIA has come to address as attested to by some enrollees of the scheme attending ante-natal care at the Agbongbon Primary Health Centre in Ibadan South East Local Government Area of the state. They told The Point that they now preferred giving birth in the health facilities than at home or by traditional birth attendants.
So far, over 100,000 residents have been enrolled into the scheme with a target of 450,000 in 2019. For every pregnant woman enrolled into the scheme, which costs a minimum of N8,000 per year, she does not need to bother herself about cost of delivery, whether by vaginal delivery or through caesarian sections. Both are free provided the woman is registered under the scheme.
A businesswoman, Mrs. Ajisofe Opeyemi, who is pregnant with her third child, told our correspondent that the scheme had reduced the burden of cost for her and her husband.
“Since I have been attending ante-natal care in this Agbongbon Primary Health Centre, no body has asked me to bring one naira for treatment. I am six months gone. Even one of my neighbours who encouraged me to enroll in the scheme, told me that even her operation was free of charge. You can see that the scheme is good,” she said.
Another enrollee, Blessing Patrick, who is a fashion designer, said, “I thank God for the scheme. My husband is a baker. He went to register me on the programme so that I won’t have problem with payment during my delivery. This is my first pregnancy and there is no money. If any emergency comes during my delivery, my husband will not be afraid of money and will not be running up and down because he knows that I am covered.”
Also sharing her joy of relief, a Record Officer at Alafia Hospital, a private provider facility in the state, Mrs Arowolo Anuoluwapo, said the cost of CS in the facility was nothing less than N100,000.
“You can imagine a pregnant woman, getting a service of N100,000 for N8,000. You know what that means. So, I am happy with the scheme. From our records, since the introduction of this scheme, many pregnant women have been coming for ante-natal care. And many of them also deliver in the facility, unlike what we experienced in the past where you had low attendance and few facility deliveries,” she explained.
Giving insight into the various benefits of the scheme, Executive Secretary , OYSHIA, Dr Olusola Akande , said the scheme had increased population coverage, expansion of services as well as financial protection, thereby reducing out of pocket payment for healthcare in the state.
Akande said the scheme had performed over 100 caesarian sections for pregnant women, besides revamping non-functional PHCS and the employment of some medical personnel into some hospitals in the state.
According to the ES, health insurance helps in changing the health seeking behaviour of enrollees.
“Under our health insurance, the patient is treated like a king. It makes you see the doctor whenever you like; you ask questions when you are sick. It promotes preventive medicine,” he said.
While calling on residents to enroll into the scheme, Akande noted that the health insurance scheme had been so designed in a way that everybody could afford it, assuring the residents that it would be scaled up in all the local government areas of the state. Akande also said that it was only Oyo State that had made provision for two per cent of its Internally Generated Revenue for health insurance scheme in the country.
Speaking during a two-day media dialogue on improving access and uptake of healthcare for children and women through social insurance scheme in the state, organised by the state’s Ministry of Information and Culture and OYSHIA with support from UNICEF, the agency’s Communication Specialist, Mrs. Blessing Ejiofor, said access to quality healthcare was a right of every child and charged the media to assist in reporting issues that would prompt policy makers to take proactive steps and implement policies that would make life better for children, women and other vulnerable groups.
Calling for increased health awareness and health promotion, Chairman/Managing Director of Mopson Pharmaceutical Limited, Dr. Michael Paul, said, “With access to healthcare, women will have more successful delivery of their babies and people will be better for it. Again, patients will have choice of providers in so doing; there will be quality of healthcare services and confidence will be restored in the healthcare system.”
For Dr. Chidi Ukandu, from a Health Management Organisation, there should be a flexible payment system in place while the laws guiding the scheme should be implemented to make it truly mandatory.
Also, other stakeholders in their different submissions, want the scheme to be made compulsory for every resident in the state to make it inclusive. They also called for increase in the quality of services of healthcare provided to enrollees in a consistent manner.
The experts affirmed that health insurance remained a vital tool for achieving universal health coverage, both in Oyo State and the country as a whole, urging private sector participation and involvement to ease access to affordable and quality healthcare services for all Nigerians.
