Director-General of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) Prof. Mohammed Sambo has said the new NHIA Act will ensure that 83 million poor and vulnerable Nigerians have access to quality healthcare services.
Sambo explained that the NHIA Act contains provisions for the Vulnerable Group Fund (VGF), ‘which shall be expended to provide subsidy for health insurance coverage of vulnerable persons as determined by the Council; and for the payment of health insurance premiums for the indigent’.
‘The Vulnerable Group Fund will be funded through the Basic Health Care Provision Fund (BHCPF), health insurance levy, special intervention allocated by the government, money accrued to the Fund from investments, grants, donations, gifts and other voluntary contributions,” he noted.
President Muhammadu Buhari, while signing the NHIA Law, “made a pledge that Nigeria and his government will make provision for the 83 million segment of vulnerable populations to be covered under the social health insurance. This is one of the potencies of the mandatory bill.
“We are happy that the Office of the Vice President has carried out a national social register which has identified people that are poor in all states. The register is within the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs. We plan to utilise the register. Since the programme will be implemented at the state level, we will ask the states to ensure that at the point of capturing people into the National Health Insurance Scheme, that data is validated,” Sambo said.
