The House of Representatives has resolved to investigate the alleged mismanagement of funds and other irregularities at the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA).
The resolution followed the adoption of a motion by Esosa Iyawe ( LP-Edo) at the plenary in Abuja on Tuesday.
The motion is titled, “Alleged Mismanagement of Funds and Other Irregularities in the operations of NHIA.”
Iyawe said that the NHIA, formerly known as the National Health Insurance Scheme, was established to ensure effective implementation of the National Health Insurance Policy.
The lawmaker said it was also meant to address the gaps in getting affordable treatment as well as ensure universal access to quality healthcare for all Nigerians.
He said the Federal Government had, over the years, driven the Health Insurance Policy through budgetary allocation under the management of NHIA and some Health Maintenance Organisations (HMOs).
Iyawe said HMOs were engaged and funded by the government to play intermediary role in the implementation of the scheme by providing a wide range of medical services to enrollees.
The lawmaker said that in spite huge budgetary allocations, records had shown that only a negligible three percent of Nigerians in the formal sector have access to health insurance.
He added that more than 170 million Nigerians were left without health insurance, adding that the scheme had been fraught with poor service delivery by the HMOs.
Iyawe said that there had been poor service delivery on the part of the healthcare service providers as evidenced by the high level of dissatisfaction among enrollees.
This, he added had discouraged many enrollees from recommending the scheme to potential subscribers.
The lawmaker said he was disturbed by reports that some hospitals do not give patients covered by NHIA prescribed drugs from their main pharmacies.
Iyawe said the reports suggested that the drugs given by the these hospitals at the other pharmacies were of low quality.
The lawmaker said that there were allegations that some HMOs failed to remit funds to the healthcare providers.
He said what all of the unscrupulous practices meant was that funds allocated for the implementation of the National Health Insurance Policy were being mismanaged.
According to him, 25 years after the commencement of the program, only about four million out of about 200 million Nigerians are covered under the scheme.
He said this was contrary to the claim by the NHIA that over 10 million Nigerians are enrolled in the program.
Iyawe argued that the implementation of the scheme had been mired in corruption, lack of transparency and accountability, including irregularities among HMOs and ill-treatment of enrollees by healthcare providers.
The House of Representatives, therefore, mandated its Committee on Healthcare Services to investigate alleged mismanagement of funds.
