Anambra State Government has vowed to descend heavily on any of its partner healthcare Providers who breaches the agreement it signed under the State Health Insurance Scheme.
The Executive Secretary, Anambra Health Insurance Agency, ASHIA, Dr. Simeon Onyemaechi, disclosed this on Friday, in a chat with TNC correspondent in his office in Awka, Anambra State Capital.
There have been allegations of unfair treatment to enrollees under the scheme, with many victims claiming to have been abandoned by the hospitals, for clients who pay over the counter at the hospital.
Some of the enrollees, most of whom are civil servants have also berated the state government for enrolling them mandatorily into the scheme, which they allege, is not functioning as it should.
But Dr Onyemaechi, in his response, said the scheme is one of the greatest legacies of the Willie Obiano administration, adding that the Agency could today boast of partnership with over two hundred and fifty (250) health Insurance facilities in various Communities across the State under the initiative.
On the reports of erring health service providers under the scheme, Dr Onyemaechi said the agency has established channels of reporting such erring health service providers, maintaining that anyone found to have defaulted will be punished and the contract with them revoked.
He asked enrollees of the Scheme to stop rubbishing the process in a bid to get back at the erring hospitals for falling short of the established norms and regulations guiding the service.
“Our people must start working towards getting to a point where they would know what their rights are and enforce them collectively. We have established channels of getting feedback on any untoward attitude towards the enrollees. Each enrollee’s card bears a number to call to report any defaulter. We have even gone as far as mandating the hospitals to paste the contact of the agency personnel to call when they feel shortchanged at their hospitals. All these and many more we have done in a bid to ensure that our enrollees get the best service available. But unfortunately, our people are yet to understand the rights they have,” he lamented.
While calling on Anambra citizens to embrace the State Health Insurance Scheme with a view to cutting their out-of-pocket health expenditure, Dr Onyemaechi lamented that the people still die from avoidable death in the state today, for not taking advantage of the opportunity provided them by the state government under ASHIA.
The ASHIA boss however noted that the Agency has not gotten to where it wants to be in terms of providing both formal and informal healthcare delivery to the people, saying the Agency targets to register about one million enrollees as against the present one hundred and fifty thousand enrollees under the scheme.
He maintained that through the scheme, the Agency is committed to bequeath Anambra people, a working Health Insurance Scheme that they would be proud of.
Dr.Onyemaechi, who also the Special Adviser to Governor Willie Obiano on Health, challenged the people to change their health seeking, stressing that the people must understand the need for them to have quality and accessible healthcare delivery without financial barrier at any time.
He attributed the success results recorded in the state so far by the Agency to the deliberate attempt, vision and the structures, put in place by the resilient staff and management of the agency through their twenty-four hour feedback mechanism.
The Medical expert who spoke further, stated that the Agency was committed towards achieving the Universal Health Coverage as enshrined in the Sustainable Development Goal 3 by 2050, through a functional and institutionalized Health Insurance Scheme in the State, advising the affluent in the state to purchase health premium for the less privileged around them so that they would be able to benefit from the largesse offered by the scheme.
Onyemaechi commended Governor Obiano’s political will in setting up the Agency and backing it up with the Anambra State Health Insurance Scheme Law, 2016, which he also said, further entrenched the agency in the fabrics of governance in the State perpetually.
