In its effort to have every Nigerians cover with health insurance, the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) has revealed it’s plan to register legal practitioners across the country under the Scheme.
In a release from NHIS signed by the
Head, Media and Public Relations Division, Mr. Emmanuel Ononokpono, the Executive Secretary, NHIS, Prof. Sambo Muhammed made stated that legal practitioners across the country will soon have unqualified access to medical attention going by the planned collaboration between the Schme and the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA).
He made this know when the President, NBA, Mr. Olumide Apata and his team paid him a courtesy visit in his office on wednesday.
The professional body and NHIS agreed to work out details that will lead to lawyers receiving healthcare coverage under the Scheme.
Apata who expressed the confidence that the partnership between the organisations was bound to yield better quality of life for members of the association also noted that health insurance remained the best option for avoiding paying out-of-pocket for healthcare.
He said, the NBA already had life insurance policy whereby relations received specified sum of money at the death of members, there was the need for health insurance to ensure good quality of life for members of the association but there is necessity for lawyers to have health insurance due to the stressful nature of their work and I had made health insurance a campaign promise.
“If I did not have medical insurance, I would have paid so much for my healthcare when I was in dire need,” he said.
Mr. Apata also speaking against the backdrop of the significance of number as a factor for coverage of groups, he stated that the association has about 100,000 members nationwide which he considered significant to warrant healthcare coverage.
Prof. Sambo in his response underscored the imperatives of working together while saying that partnership with the Association held prospects of going beyond enrolment of Lawyers to members of the Association serving as opinion molders for the scheme.
The ES also highlighted the Scheme’s commitment to cover every Nigerian while adding that steps taken by the NBA will inspire other professional bodies to consider similar initiative.
“I observed that the e-NHIS platform recently approved by the Federal Executive Council (FEC) will put the Scheme’s business processes on the cutting edge of technology when it comes on stream, adding that the scheme was in cooperation with international partners to build capacity of staff of Scheme.
“To speed up the process of achieving the stated objectives of the collaboration, the Scheme has raised a committee to liaise with the legal body.”
