NHIS begins free healthcare for children, pregnant women
National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) will in September flag off a project under which pregnant women will access free antenatal servives for their children who fall below five years.
The project, which is at the pilot stage, was evolved by the NHIS and will be funded in six states by the Federal Government through the Millennium Development Goals office, where about two million people are expected to be catered to.
Hope Udeagha, general manager, technical operations, NHIS, who dropped the hint, said this was an effort by the NHIS to move the country to meet the 2015 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in the health sector.
According to him, the world and all the leading development institutions evolved a blueprint titled "the eight Millennium Development Goals" (MDGs) in which they agreed to halve extreme poverty and halt the spread of HIV/AIDS as well as provide universal primary education for all by the target date of 2015.
The goals, he added, were to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, achieve universal primary education, promote gender equality and reduce child mortality.
Others are to improve maternal health, combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, ensure environmental sustainability, and develop global partnership for development from the blueprint, which is a galvanised unprecedented effort to meet the needs of the world’s poorest.
Udeagha, who spoke at the forum organised by Health and Managed Care Association of Nigeria (HMCAN) in Abuja, said the event was designed to bring all the stakeholders in the NHIS together to fashion a way forward for the scheme, currently undergoing review:"Under that project, we will be catering for pregnant women and children under five.
We projected to capture about two million from the informal sector through this. It is just that we are starting with few states first and the more we go capturing more states, we are also facilitating the achievement of the MDG 4 and 5 by 2015", he said.
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