The Kwara state office of the National Health Insurance Authority, NHIA, was inaugurated on Tuesday with dignitaries at the event commending Senator Yahaya Ibrahim Oloriegbe’s efforts to improve healthcare services in the country.
Team@orientactualmags.com learned that Senator Yahaya Oloriegbe, who currently represents Kwara Central in the Senate, facilitated the project and this was also confirmed by the Director General /CEO of the National Health Insurance Authority, NHIA, Professor Muhammad Nasir Sambo while giving his speech during the inauguration ceremony held in Ilorin, Kwara state capital, on Tuesday.
President Muhammadu Buhari, who was represented by his Chief of Staff, Professor Ibrahim Gambari , noted that he was proud to be the nation’s leader who signed the national health insurance bill into law because the national insurance act has made health insurance mandatory for all while also helping to guarantee medical health security for all citizens and residents of the country.
While noting that he was happy to attend the event as the president’s Chief of Staff and an indigene of Kwara state , Professor Ibrahim Gambari congratulated those who had played a role in making the new prototype office project of the National Health Insurance Authority ,Ilorin possible ‘especially, the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Health , our own Senator Ibrahim Oloriegbe’.
‘This landmark event is yet another evidence of President Muhammadu Buhari administration’s focus on the establishment and maintenance of critical infrastructure across the length and breadth of our great country in order to address the needs of our citizens and the residents.
The Buhari administration is particularly interested in the health and wellbeing of the citizens and residents of this country. A great philosopher once said “Mens sana in corpore sano’ , ‘a healthy mind in a healthy body’.
The health and the wellbeing of the citizens of Nigeria is central to the progress and development of our great country. We also want to recognize the prominent position that the health sector has played in the next level agenda of President Muhammadu Buhari.
Specifically, this administration has also made giant strides towards the attainment of the universal health coverage in Nigeria by ensuring the operationalization of the Basic HealthCare Provision Fund (BHCPF) and signing the National Health Insurance Authority bill into law, thus becoming an act on May 19, 2022’ he added.
The president also noted that the establishment of the Vulnerable Group Fund will help to care for millions of vulnerable Nigerians while expanding the role of the NHIA to become a promoter, an integrator and a regulator of all health insurance schemes in Nigeria.
‘With the expansion of its mandate, NHIA has to be repositioned to effectively handle mandatory health insurance and efficiently manage the Vulnerable Group Fund. This can only be achieved by providing those in charge with the right quality, the right quantity and the right mix of these human material and financial resources as well as an enabling environment to operate.
Necessary reforms have been carried out over the last three and a half years through the implementation of the 10 presidential action points, which include the development of a 10-year strategic plan, the revision of the organizational structure as well as the review of the NHIS act 2004, which culminated in the signing of NHIA bill in 2022.
I have also observed with keen interest the introduction of the 3-point rebranding agenda anchored on the following:
Value reorientation, transparency and accountability and accelerating the drift towards the universal health coverage which has given birth to several other reforms.
Let me mention a few of these reforms.
The NHIA programme which is a critical national asset , the NHIA edifice supply initiative, which has introduced core sharing, branding and innovative financing to make healthcare services more available, more affordable, more accessible and also guarantee quality healthcare for the enrollees.
The group, individual and family social health insurance programmes that had already covered many Nigerians, including members of the National Youth Service Corps, NYSC, retirees, constituents, professional associates and very many others. Capacity- building initiatives through collaboration with local and foreign institutions, capacity as well as strategic investment, to mention just a few.
The strategy investment has spread across the country. Here in Kwara, in Katsina, in Imo, in Borno, in Kebbi, in Edo, in Ogun, in Adamawa, and of course the new corporate headquarters which is under construction in Abuja.
Today, we are gathered here to inaugurate the first ever NHIA prototype office. An infrastructure project that will create an enabling environment for professionalism , digitalization and integration of best international practices and best quality service delivery which will fast- track the attainment of universal health coverage. Let me assure you that the federal government will continue to support the ongoing reforms and the efforts of the National Health Insurance Authority to improve access to quality healthcare for each and every Nigerian and legal resident.
In this regard, I want to congratulate and commend the Director-General, who is here with us. His energy, his creativity and his dedication have been duly recognized. And we are confident that under his leadership, the objectives, goals and purposes of the NHIA will be fully realized. I want to assure again that we will leave no stone unturned to achieve these lofty goals’ he said.
Governor Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq, who was represented by the state Commissioner for Health, Dr Raji Razaq, also noted that it was his pleasure ‘to celebrate another remarkable achievement that has come our way through democratic rule’.
‘I specially congratulate all Kwarans at different echelons of government who have been a party to the accomplishment of this infrastructure project , an addition to the several federal government projects in Kwara state. I would like to specifically acknowledge the role played by our own distinguished senator representing Kwara Central senatorial district, Senator Dr. Ibrahim Yahaya Oloriegbe, who is also the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Health. The positive impact of the senator in the health workspace especially through legislative interplays has proven that Kwarans have much more to offer the world than the impressions of yesteryears.
In the same vein, I am in no doubt that this edifice will provide a decent work environment to enhance the actualization of our mutual plans for improving healthcare delivery in our state and the country as a whole. It is therefore not an accident that this prototype office building is emerging as the first to be completed in the country.
At the home front, I am proud to share the successes we have recorded in changing the narratives and ensuring that Kwarans are availed relevant opportunities to benefit from various intervention programmes that are being planned at the national level. The gory health indices of Kwarans have changed through our commitment to fulfilling competent funding obligations, infrastructural rehabilitation, provision of hospital equipments, recruitment and replacement of health workers, training, retraining and application of various motivational strategies towards ensuring that the health workers share in our dream thereby offering the best to our citizens.
We want to say that our leading hospital has never been so equipped in the recent history of the state. We can only beat our own records while working on the existing gaps’ he said.
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Giving his speech, the Director General/Chief Executive Officer of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA), Professor Mohammed Nasir Sambo, noted that the agency had taken a decision to build a new corporate headquarters in Abuja and prototype State offices across the country in order to save the NHIA from committing huge amount of money to payment of rents for offices across the country.
He further noted that the full decentralization of ‘our business processes to the state offices’ and ‘provision of befitting and functional offices for ‘our growing human resource base’ will enhance the agency’s corporate image and improve services to ‘our teeming enrollees’.
‘As we all know the challenges of frequent office relocation, quit notices and ejections without cogent reasons and outright sales of rented properties by owners without notification have been major hurdles that impeded our progress.
These challenges have caused disruption to our operations and made the agency lose fortunes as a result of relocation and re-installation of ICT infrastructure equipment, and hindered us from delivering the best services to our enrollees.
With the inauguration of this state prototype office, we are taking a bold step towards curbing these challenges, and therefore, writing a new chapter in the history of NHIA.
We have the potential to grow and expand our operations, and I am confident that the state prototype office will be a catalyst for our success.
This office is not only larger, but it is also designed and constructed specifically to cater for our state-of-the-art facilities, advanced technology, and modern infrastructure that will help us to work more efficiently .
The new office will provide an enabling environment that will encourage collaboration and communication, which will foster stronger team spirit among our employees in addition to this; it will provide a more professional and welcoming environment for our enrollees and partners.
It will also help us improve our reputation as the promoters, regulators and integrators of health insurance in Nigeria.
The new office represents a major step forward for our operations, and we are really honoured , proud and equally humbled by what we have accomplished’ he said.
Director General, NHIA, Professor Muhammed Nasiru Sambo giving his speech at the event.
Senator Yahaya Ibrahim Oloriegbe said he was at peace with himself and happy that God has made it possible for him to have legacy projects that will continue to provide healthcare services to Nigerians even after he must have left the senate.
He said the inauguration of the NHIA Kwara state office on Tuesday was significant in many ways.
‘I was elected on 24 February 2019 and it is two days to the fourth year that I was elected as senator and this may also be the last official event that I will attend as a senator . It is also the inauguration ceremony of one of the key legacies projects that I facilitated which will be there forever, the first one is the establishment of the Federal Neuro Psychiatric Hospital for the North Central in Budo Egba ,Kwara state.
In April 2022, the senate President was here to lay the foundation stone of major projects there and the place is now functional and it has a lot of structures we have been able to build Wards at the hospital, we have provided generators and equipment and staff there, and the hospital just recruited about 100 staff recently, you can imagine getting jobs provided for 100 families.
The second one is the establishment of a hospital in Idi Isin in the Oko Olowo axis of Jebba -Ilorin Road , we built a comprehensive health centre there and ensured that the Federal Ministry of Health took it over and made the health facility a satellite hospital for the University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital.
Before then, the satellite hospitals of the UITH were in Saki, Oyo state and Okenne, Kogi State.
The hospital at Idi Isin has not only been accepted as a satellite hospital but also as an emergency center because of its location.
It is already functional, we have staff there and we have been able to provide them an ambulance , the project was also inaugurated by the Senate President last year.
The third one is the Ilorin Emirate Mobile Clinic ,it was also brought here today to provide services.
This is a legacy project because what we used to have were stationary hospitals but you know we have rural areas and access to healthcare services had been a challenge, therefore in order to bring healthcare to the doorsteps of the people, we came up with the idea of Ilorin Emirate Mobile Clinic that is fully equipped including laboratory test equipment and what are needed to diagnose and they can move from one community to another , this was also inaugurated by the Emir of Ilorin in 2022.
The fourth one is the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, NAFDAC state office.
Before I became a senator the agency had a land that had been left unused for more than twenty years, we facilitated the project and in October last year the state office of NAFDAC became the first one to be inaugurated under this administration.
The NHIA state office is also significant in many ways, this office is the first to be completed and inaugurated out of the ongoing state office projects in six states in the country..
When this project was started, the agency’s name was NHIS but now it is NHIA by virtue of the bill that I had the privilege to sponsor , it is not only a change of name but a change in handling of health insurance in the country, health insurance is now mandatory for all.
Every resident must have health insurance anybody leaving the country must have health insurance, and soon , it will be made mandatory that anyone seeking to visit Nigeria must get health insurance as he or she gets our visa.
We also know that a good number of Nigerians are poor and they may not be able to pay for premium but the law has taken care of them through the Vulnerable Group Fund’ he said..
Ahead of the presidential election scheduled to hold on Saturday, Senator Oloriegbe has also urged support for the APC presidential candidate , Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, calling him the best and most qualified candidate.
‘I was elected four years ago, another election is coming this weekend, this government has done a lot , I have been able to sponsor eleven bills , ten of them have been passed by the senate while four have been signed into law by the president .
We are urging every Nigerian to vote for competence and quality and the person that is qualified and the best candidate to emerge as our next president is Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu ‘ he said.
The senator added that voting for Tinubu will guarantee social economic development and elimination of banditry and security challenges.
Oloriegbe thanked electors in the Kwara Central for voting for him four years ago and making him have the opportunity to serve the people.
‘I thank my constituents for the opportunity given to me by having me elected four years ago. Iam very grateful to God and Iam very grateful to them we have done a lot to impact lives, we have renovated schools, , we have built ICT Center, I have constructed about seventy five boreholes, water treatment plants , we have made transformers available to more than thirty communities.
I could not have done all these without the mandate given to me by the people, I thank them and I have continued to tell them that it is not only when you are an office-holder that you can serve the people I have been serving the people as a medical doctor and I will continue to serve humanity’ he said.
In his goodwill message, the Emir of Shonga, Dr Haliru Yahaya commended Senator Ibrahim Oloriegbe for making dreams come true ,recalling past efforts to strengthen health insurance in the country.
Senator Oloriegbe has according to him helped to make past efforts yield positive results through the inauguration of the NHIA office in Ilorin.
The Shonga monarch noted that such past efforts had him heading a committee comprising state health commissioners in 1999.
Governor Abdulrazaq’s Special Adviser on Strategy, Alhaji Saadu Salahu , Emir of Shonga, Alhaji Haliru Yahaya and two other guests.
Representative of the World Health Organization , WHO , Rasheedah Abdulkadir said the inauguration of the NHIS office in Ilorin has marked an important step by the government to provide health security for the people., ensure universal health coverage and make this affordable.
She said 73 per cent of people taking care of their health needs had done this through out of pocket expenses- Team@orientactualmags.com
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