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03 JUNE 2009
FOURTH COMMUNITY IN KWARA STATE GETS ACCESS TO HEALTHCARE
Written by: Hygeia News
On 3rd June 2009 Afon became the fourth low income community in Kwara State to gain access to affordable, quality healthcare through the Hygeia Community Health Plan (HCHP), a subsidized community health insurance scheme. Over 50,000 people have enrolled in the scheme from Shonga, Bacita and Lafiagi communities since the launch of the first scheme in January 2007. The Afon community health insurance scheme aims to enroll and provide access to medical care for an additional 50,000 individuals over a 5 year period.
The Hygeia Community Health Plan is able to offer affordable healthcare through donor subsidies, and for Afon are jointly provided by the Dutch Health Insurance Fund and the Kwara State government. This is the first scheme in which a state government has committed to co-finance the required subsidies to enable the community to gain access to quality care, which is testimony to the Executive Governor, Dr. Bukola Saraki’s vision to provide quality healthcare to all citizens of Kwara State. With a co-premium of N300 per person per annum, enrollees will gain a comprehensive healthcare package including outpatient care, specialist consultations, hospital admissions, drugs and pharmaceutical care, antenatal care, delivery and post natal care services, immunizations, minor & intermediate surgeries and HIV/AIDS treatment. Medical care is provided by designated private and public hospitals and clinics within the targeted communities. As part of its contribution to the commencement of the scheme in Afon, the Kwara State Government has undertaken to upgrade infrastructure and equipment at the Afon General Hospital to the standards required. The Health Insurance Fund has also provided funds to upgrade a private hospital, Ilera Layo medical centre, which will be part of the provider network for Afon Community.
“By expanding into Afon we will increase access to quality healthcare to over 150,000 low income people in Kwara over the next few years. With this, the HCHP is making a very real contribution to the goal to achieve universal healthcare coverage in Kwara State.” says Mrs Njide Ndili, Managing Director of the HCHP. “We have already witnessed the scheme working in other Kwara communities where individuals have made over 70,000 visits to the participating hospitals to receive health care services for a variety of medical conditions, including over 9,805 antenatal visits and over 950 newborn deliveries, all at no cost to the beneficiaries. Our hope is to continue to expand the programme within and beyond Kwara State.”
The Dutch Health Insurance Fund (HIF) is the first international fund of its type focusing on providing subsidies for community insurance schemes in Africa and it selected Nigeria as the first country for implementation. The HCHP is the first health plan in Africa to benefit from the fund. The key objective of the HIF is to increase access to quality basic healthcare for currently uninsured groups, using a public private partnership model. The grant for Nigeria was for a five year period. The HCHP is a subsidiary of Hygeia Nigeria Ltd; an integrated health care services group which is committed to the delivery of health care services of international standard in Nigeria. The Hygeia Nigeria Group also consists of The Lagoon Hospital group, Hygeia HMO and Hygeia Nigeria Foundation.
