By Justina Auta
The Ultimate Health HMO, an NGO, on Thursday, called for more women enrollment into the National Health Insurance to improve their wellbeing and reduce maternal mortality.
The organisation’s newly appointed Board Chairman, Mrs Angela Ajala, made the call on the sideline of a meeting with management and other board members in Abuja.
Ajala said that the new health insurance law stipulates that every Nigerian should be enrolled, hence the need for women and vulnerable people to urgently key into it for their health benefits.
She added that “the president was very emphatic that funds be set aside for those considered vulnerable and cannot afford premiums.
“It is now mandatory as long as you are a Nigerian, you must be covered under the insurance scheme.
“I am bringing on board the fact that women contributes a lot in the GDP of Nigeria and many times they do so much without any attention paid to their health. So, we want all women enrolled to make sure that health is wealth.
“If they are healthy, there will be less distractions for them and they will be able to focus more on businesses.”
She,therefore advised women to key into the health insurance coverage, as it was affordable and easily accessible.
Mr Lekan Ewenla, the Managing Director of the HMO, said the new health insurance law is a call for every health maintenance organisation to restrategise toward encouraging more enrollment for improved national health coverage.
He said “there is an urgent need for every licenced HMO to go back to the drawing board for holistic review and total reconfiguration of business strategy because Nigeria needs to get well; we need to change the narrative of our health indices.
“We need to begin to drive the enrollment of Nigerians on the health insurance programme starting with creating the required awareness for everyone to understand the benefits of health insurance.”
The managing director expressed optimism that the newly appointed board chairman would offer valuable business support, technical, innovative and visionary leadership to the management of the organisation.
Other board members include Mr Muhammed Sani-Alhassan, Non-Executive Director, Adekunle Ewenla, Non-Executive Director, Mrs Susan Giwa-Osagie, Independent Non-Executive Director.
Others are: Abdulaziz Mashi-Abdullahi, Independent Non-Executive Director and Dr Mina Bob-Manuel, Non-Executive Director representing the interest of minority shareholders.
