260,000 register for Contributory Health Scheme in Kaduna

Aliyu Saidu, Director General Kaduna State Contributory Health Management Authority on Friday, said no fewer than 260,000 people have been enrolled into the state Contributory Health Scheme, designed to offer easy access to quality healthcare services.

Mr Saidu made the disclosure in Kaduna at a 2-day workshop organised by the Agency for health workers in Primary Health Centres in the state on the modalities of the scheme.

He said so far, the bulk of the enrollees had registered with private health facilities, adding that the workshop was to sensitise the PHCs on the need to woo enrollees to their facilities.

"This workshop is important to you because the state government has invested a lot to establish the scheme and the health workers needed to work hard to revitalize the health insurance scheme.

"The state government has also invested a lot of money in the renovation and upgrading of the 255 PHCs and also recruitment of 3,000 health workers for better quality services in every ward for enrollees privileges.

He added that the agency had disbursed over N100 million to Health Maintenance Organisations out of which only N10 million went to the primary health centers.

Mr Aliyu said that the low returns was due to gaps in services by the PHCs, and urged the participants "to take advantage of this training by grabbing the opportunity so as to get more enrollees to your facilities".

"Make your services better and you will get more people in your facility, the more people in your facility the more money in your account."

The director general said that it was important for the health workers in the PHCs to change their attitude to work in order to attract more enrollees.

Also speaking, the Director Operations of the scheme, Dr Juliana Bungwon, explained that health care providers are expected to sign service level agreement with the agency and provide services in accordance with the approved benefit package and standard.

"They should also adhere to treatment guidelines issued by the authority and state ministry of health, provide utilisation data to the authority, provide health education to enrollees and ensure patient confidentiality."

She said the training of the health workers is important, because Primary Health Centers are gate keepers as they are the first meeting point of any patient.

Ms Bungwon added that the training is to help the health workers so that there won't be any hindrance on quality service delivery.

The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the participants were health providers in the three senatorial zones of the state.