Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq of Kwara State has so far paid N428M as counterpart funds to enable the poor indigenes in the state to benefit from the state health insurance scheme says Dr Olubunmi-Jetawo Winter, Executive Secretary, Kwara State Health Insurance Agency.
Jetawo said this during an interview with journalists in Ilorin on Tuesday on the sideline of an interactive session with stakeholders and financiers on how to move the agency forward.
Kwara State First Lady, Ambassador Olufolake AbdulRazaq, Officials of National and Kwara State Health Insurance Agencies, healthcare services providers and sponsors met on ways to strengthen healthcare financing to lessen the burden of healthcare on the vulnerable and indigent population.
Organised by the Kwara State Health Insurance Agency, the stakeholders resolved the need to strengthen advocacy on attracting more sponsors for the indigent population and promote access to subsidised healthcare services across the state to achieve universal health coverage.
According to Dr Olubunmi-Jetawo Winter on the issue of counterpart funding, she said,”This is our third year of implementation and I remember that the first year the governor paid N100M,the second year he paid N150M but just for my own agency he has also paid N78M this year and in addition to that he paid N100M last year as subsidies for the poor to enable us to bring more of them on board.”
She also said that the agency now has over 70,000 enrollees on the list of its healthcare service providers.
“In September 2020 the programme officially kicked off, the agency had 10,000 enrollees but now we have about 70,000 people enrolled in health insurance. That is even without the formal sector. When the civil servants come on board, we are looking at additional 200,000 people”, she said.
Dr Jetawo-Winter also said that financing health insurance was expected to come from different stakeholders including the government and sponsors.
The Executive Secretary further explained that subsidizing healthcare services would go a long way in ensuring that people have access to affordable healthcare delivery.
“As it stands in Kwara now, we have about 30 percent population who falls under poverty index and who we are really poor. We need to subsidize them and this is where these invaluable sponsors come in because they go in to their communities or catchment areas and mob up these indigents who ordinarily we have not gotten to because the physical space for financing the poor is limited and these people have to be covered and renewed on a yearly basis.
