Health Insurance, Key to Achieving SDGs Targets – Sambo 

The Executive Secretary of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS),  Professor Mohammed Nasir Sambo has reiterated that health insurance remains the only instrument for the achievement of the 2030 targets of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Nigeria.

With special reference to universal health coverage, Sambo described it as a global agenda with strategic local significance for Nigeria’s socio-economic development.

In a statement signed by Head, Media and Public Relations, Ayo Osinlu Media & Public Relations and made available to RegentAfrica Times, on Tuesday, the NHIS Boss said the need to achieve universal health coverage informed the increasing efforts of NHIS in sensitisation and advocacies to organisations in both the public and private sectors to enrol their employees.

Speaking at a courtesy call on the Comptroller General, Nigeria Customs Service -Colonel Hameed Ali (rtd), Sambo commended the service for constant release of contributions on behalf of its officers and men after a period of their recent suspension by the Scheme.

The NHIS helmsman appealed to Custom Service to ensure payments are constant, timely and upfront says the scheme is a prepaid programme. This, he said, will guarantee that officers of the Customs Service and their dependents receive from the healthcare providers, appropriate quality of care that will meet enrolled expectations.

Sambo used the occasion to announce that the Scheme has transferred NCS enrollees to their preferred HMO, Songhai Health Trust, effective from the 1st of this month. He stated that NHIS will monitor closely to ensure that officers of the Service and their dependents receive no less than the quality of care defined by the Scheme’s Operational Guidelines for its enrollees.

He also assured the Comptroller General that NHIS of his preparedness to carry out mop-up registration and sensitization for NCS operatives and their dependents across the country, using Scheme’s Field Officers in the zone and states.

The ES, however, calls for a close collaboration between the sister agencies for smooth implementation of implementation of that process.

The Comptroller General of the Nigeria Customs Service, Colonel Hameed Ali, assured the NHIS that the Customs Service is a law-abiding government institution, as he ascribed the hitches in the transactions of the two agencies in the past to negligence by both agencies.

He therefore recommended for officers of both organisations to begin joint appraisals immediately to determine the actual obligations of the service to NHIS.