BY SOLA OGUNDIPE

CHAIRMAN of the Board of Trustees, BOT, of the Health Reform Foundation of Nigeria, Dr. Ben Anyene has called on President Goodluck Jonathan to speedily endorse the National Health Bill so as to provide quality health services for Nigerians.

Anyene, who spoke during this year’s annual congress and scientific meeting of the Health Care Providers Association of Nigeria, HCPAN, said the Bill has potential to help address once and for all, the problem of poor funding as the bane of the implementation of the Scheme.

In his keynote address, in which he proffered solutions to the numerous lingering problems facing the scheme, Anyene pointed to the low percentage budgetary allocation to the health sector and decried the government policy of paying employers the contributions of their employees.

The non- availability of the counterpart funding from the States to the pool of funds for the maternal and child programme for the Millennium Development Goals, MDGs was also highlighted.

The HERFON top executive said successes of the private sector over the years have had minimal involvement in provision of health insurance for majority of Nigerians because there were no effective collaborative activities among stakeholders.

“Government must also take responsibilityfor those unable to pay premiums. Those in the informal sector and rural areas need to be covered as well and it will be good to have a reinsurance mechanism for NHIS /managed care for them to strengthen their pools.

“Workers must begin to make contribution, while agencies involved in insurance must play the roles of regulating and monitoring for qualityimprovement in preventive cares, efficient purchasing of services and effective health service delivery just as the dichotomies between the isolated tertiary, secondary and primary systems need to be bridged through effective referral structures.”