Ondo establishes Community Health Care Insurance Scheme
In order to further eliminate finance as barrier to accessing health care, the Ondo state Government has brought into being a Community Health Care Insurance Scheme in its health system for the people of the state.
The State Governor, Dr. Olusegun Mimiko made this known yesterday at the 2 nd year anniversary of the Safe Motherhood (Abiye) Programme at Igbara-Oke community in Ifedore Local government area of the state.
According to him, about twelve Local government areas have benefitted in the Scheme and arrangements are at an advanced stage to involve other remaining Local government areas.
He lamented that over seventy percent of the population in Nigeria are still wallowing in poverty and thus are unable to access quality health care.
The governor who was represented by his wife, Mrs. Olukemi Mimiko stressed that the concept of the Abiye initiative was to make quality health care assessable to pregnant women and children under five in the state.
His words: “All registered pregnant women are monitored through toll-free mobile phones pointed that the facilities being used for the programme have been improved to deliver minimum healthcare package to pregnant women and under five children at no cost to them.
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“With the success of Abiye, all is set to replicate the programme in the other local government area in due course. Also, construction is going on in Ondo town to build the Mother and Child Hospital which will subsequently get to the other senatorial districts”, he said.
Mimiko noted that the Safe Motherhood (Abiye) Programme has developed from a home grown initiative at Ifedore to a benchmark for achieving the MDGs 4 and 5 for the continent of Africa.
Consequently, he said, a health project termed “Result Based Financing in Health” is to commence in Nigeria and Ondo state has been chosen as one of the three pilot states as a result of the empirical evidence of the success of Abiye.
The governor however said that in view of the increasing deaths on our highways, the emergency medical service has been established to reduce deaths from traffic accidents and to complement rapid response to emergency, a modern medical diagnostic centre “Gani Fawehinmi Diagnostic Centre” has been built and commissioned for use.
“These achievements in the health sector are the result of a visionary approach to development with the participation of all of you who have toiled day and night to contribute towards our success”, he added.
Earlier in his welcome address, the Commissioner for Health, Dr. Dayo Adeyanju congratulated the beneficiaries of the programme saying that they are expecting more to benefit in the programme in the years ahead.
He therefore lauded the traditional rulers in the area for their efforts in mobilising the communities and pregnant women in the area to embrace the programme.