Ijah-Pada embraces FCTA health insurance scheme

Tasking locals on the need to embrace the scheme, Dr. Aganaba and her team visited 20 communities across the six area councils of the FCT.
After series of public enlightenment campaigns through the efforts of two committees made up of area councils’ desk officers responsible for mobilisation, the residents expressed their delight with the scheme.
The massive sensitisation campaigns mounted by the desks officers on the importance of the scheme made inhabitants to accept to register with the sum of N1,800 per year.
Recently, the moving train of the scheme arrived Ijah-Pada community and, as expected, residents, especially women, welcomed the scheme.  
 Speaking during the distribution of the health insurance cards by the coordinator of the scheme, the traditional ruler of the village, Alhaji Ibrahim Ayewa, said his people were reluctant when the programme started, but after series of public enlightenment campaigns, they saw good reasons to embrace it.
He noted that the free medical treatment embarked upon by the FCT administration by reaching out to rural communities has no doubt brought a sigh of relief to all rural people.
He said residents of the community travel to Kwali town in order to seek for medical treatment due to lack of drugs at the community clinic, adding that with the introduction of the community health insurance scheme, many residents have expressed readiness to key into the scheme.
“Even the clinic we are using is in a state of dilapidation as the roof is leaking while cobwebs have taken over the entire building due to lack of attention by the council authorities,” he said.
On her part, the coordinator of the scheme, Dr. Grace Aganaba, advised residents to utilise the opportunity provided by the scheme to stay healthy at all times, so that they could contribute positively to the development of the community and the entire council.
She stated that the Minister of State for FCT, Oloye Olajumoke Akinjide, has seen the importance of healthcare delivery and mandated that by 2015, every Nigerian must have a health insurance card.
She said CBHIS took it as a priority to ensure that every resident across the rural communities of the FCT has the health insurance card in order to prevent rural people from travelling far distance to seek for medication.
She said CBHIS was collaborating with the Primary Healthcare Board and area councils’ chairmen in ensuring the success of the exercise, adding that there has been compliance from people across various communities.
“And we are also partnering with ‘Mai Lafiya’ to distribute drugs and offer free medical services to communities where there are no clinics as we have covered over 300 villages in FCT,” she said.