Lagos: LHIS Will Correct NHIS Mistakes — Commissioner
The Lagos State Ministry of Health has partnered the Health Finance and Governance project of the United States Agency for International Development to unveil the Lagos Health Insurance Scheme.
The new scheme, which covers basic healthcare service, will take off in the last quarter of the year and will be compulsory for all residents of the state.
Speaking on the initiative, the Commissioner for Health, Dr Jide Idris, noted that the funding of the health sector was the responsibility of everyone, not just for the government alone.“It is all about making health accessible to a large population of our people in Lagos State. It is about making the cost of care cheaper than what it used to be. It is all about ensuring the quality of care people get and making the whole system efficient, restoring the system so that everyone would benefit.”
He said the new health scheme would involve public and private care providers so that more people would have access to medical services.
“We are starting with the basic care which means over 70 per cent of our people can be treated at the primary care level. We are trying to reintroduce the referral system whereby one can refer people from the primary to secondary or tertiary hospitals to receive quality healthcare services,” Idris said.
Corroborating the commissioner, the General Manager of the Lagos State Health Management Agency, Dr Peju Adenusi, said the Lagos state health scheme was designed to address health needs of residents regardless of status.
By: Dayo Ojerinde
The Punch News
