The Director General of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA), Prof. Mohammed Sambo, has urged the agency’s state offices to ensure that no life in their domains is left uncovered under health insurance.
Sambo, who spoke yesterday in Kaduna while receiving an Award of Excellence from the Kaduna State office of the authority, noted that with the 2022 NHIA Act 2022, health insurance has become mandatory on all Nigerians and legal residents in the country.
The NHIA boss, who was represented by the agency’s acting Director of Special Duties, Sulaiman Ibrahim, said the authority had been well repositioned to achieve its statutory mandate of attaining the Universal Health Coverage, especially with the birth of the new NHIA Act 2022.
He said the Act has introduced some landmark innovations, such as redefining the objects of the authority and streamlining its objects.
“Accordingly, NHIA is to regulate, integrate, and promote health insurance in Nigeria. The Act has made health insurance mandatory for all Nigerians and legal residents, the establishment of the Vulnerable Group Fund to subsidise the cost of provision of health care services to the vulnerable persons in Nigeria, amongst other innovations that have changed the health insurance ecosystem.
“The authority recently unveiled the new operational guidelines that would explain and amplify the provisions of the new law.
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“Therefore, I urge you to take advantage of the new health insurance landscape in order to take health insurance to the last man, woman, and the needy on the street,” Sambo said..
“This event is remarkably important for its novelty and timing, in that it is the first time that a state chapter of the NHIA would spare time amid its numerous duties to look inward to appreciate and award its Chief Executive Officer, for providing selfless, purposeful and farsighted leadership to the suthority that had once been disarrayed by mismanagement and wanton disregard for law and order,” Sambo said.
The Kaduna State Coordinator of the authority, Aminu Tanimu, announced that the award was organised to celebrate excellence, honour outstanding achievements and recognise individuals and organisations that have made exceptional contributions to the NHIA ecosystem.
Other recipients of the award include the Chief Medical Director of Federal Neuropsychiatric Hospital, Kaduna, Prof. Aishatu Armaya’u; Police Health Management Organisation (HMO), Giwa Specialist Hospital; Regenix HMO; Freedom Radio 92.9; Invicta FM 98.9; Hajia Ummulkhair Sada; and Alhaji Kabiru Umar.