Chioma Umeha
Dr Olusola Akande, Executive Secretary of Oyo
State Health Insurance Agency (OYSHIA), has called for increased awareness
among Oyo citizens on social health insurance programme in the State to enable
them to embrace the scheme.
Akande said adequate sensitisation on the
importance and benefits of health insurance are required for the programme to
really gain ground sufficiently.
The health insurance agency boss spoke at a media
dialogue on improving access and uptake healthcare for marginalised women and
children in Oyo State which was organised by Oyo State Ministry of Information
in collaboration with OYSHIA and the United Nation Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
According to him, the agency has recorded 100,000
enrollees in the last 18 months of its operations and that it targets was to
hit 450,000 to cover five percent of the population of the state before June.
He listed the efforts of the agency aimed at
providing quality healthcare services for the people of the state without
experiencing catastrophic health expenditure.
He also said, no fewer than 100 pregnant women in
the state have delivered through Caesarean Section (CS) done under the health
insurance scheme and that thousands of residents of the State have benefited
from the scheme.
He was worried that many people are still unaware
of the activities of OYSHIA and sought the support of the media to propagate
the importance of health insurance to the people so that more people would
enroll in the scheme.
Akande said OYSHIA has been rated very high in
terms of performance and assured that the agency would not relent in making
sure that the people of the state enjoy quality healthcare without expending
their entire savings on medical bills.
Contributing, Mr. Rotimi Babalola, Director, Press
and Public Relations, Oyo State Ministry of Information, Culture and
Tourism, praised UNICEF for its efforts
in ensuring the wellbeing of children and women.
Mrs. Blessing Ejiofor, UNICEF Communication
Specialist, in her remarks said access to quality healthcare is a right of
every child and charged the media to assist in reporting issues that would
prompt the policymakers to take proactive steps and implement policies that
would make life better for children, women and other vulnerable groups.
She explained that the objective of the dialogue
was to create an opportunity for media advocacy on increasing access and uptake
of healthcare services for children and venerable populations through the
health insurance scheme using Oyo State Health Insurance Agency (OYSHIA) as a
case study.
Ejiofor said the initiative was also designed to
provide media partners with the knowledge and material that would assist them
to understand the issues, advocate and report health insurance scheme to create
more awareness of it and encourage more people to enroll in the scheme.
Similarly, Dr Adebola Hassan, UNICEF Health
Specialist and other experts in their various presentations dwelled on the
importance and benefits of health insurance and stressed the need to attain Universal
Health Coverage (UHC) and ensure good health for the citizens.
