THE Lagos State Health Management Agency (LASHMA)has announced that it has registered an estimated 756,000 residents in the state under the Ilera Eko health insurance scheme, even as the agency is seeking innovative ways to support providers in ensuring that their services are upgraded without worries over inflation.
According to media reports, this information was disclosed by the General Manager of LASHMA, Dr Emmanuella Zamba, at the agency’s first annual Ilera Eko forum themed: “The Brighter Future.”
Zamba stated that LASHMA was committed to advancing the quality of healthcare delivery to residents of Lagos State.
Zamba added that “The beauty of health insurance is that it takes human side financing, which is people’s money, to provide healthcare. What that means is that every month, a fixed amount goes into the facility from every person that is enrolled.
“The hospital has a guaranteed income, which they can use to not only provide care but to also increase the quality of their facilities.
“Insurance, the way we are implementing it is that we not only use the public facilities but we also use the private facilities.
“It’s a combination of both public and private facilities in Lagos State. Whatever we are doing on the public side, we are also doing to support the private side. Those are things that we are looking at about providers’ management.
She also affirmed that providers will now have the opportunity to enrol people into their facilities.
Speaking on the scheme, the Lagos State Commissioner for Health, Professor Akin Abayomi, represented by the Permanent Secretary of Health, Dr Olusegun Ogboye, said, “The plan is not only for the vulnerable, it is for anybody willing to pay for it. In fact, it is now compulsory to get health insurance, but for the vulnerable, we don’t want to leave them behind. It will be terrible to leave people just because they can’t afford it.
“The insurance holders will not continue to pay for insurance if they are not happy with the quality of service, and that would also affect the quality of healthcare that they get when they get to these centres.”
Meanwhile, Zamba said the forum was conceived to provide a platform for healthcare providers to share ideas, policies and strategies that would help improve access and standard healthcare, stressing that LASHMA wants the Ilera Eko scheme to be sustainable and successful.
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