No fewer than 40,000 poor and vulnerable persons will be enrolled in the second phase of the Gombe Health Scheme, says Operations Manager, Gombe State Contributory Healthcare Management Agency, Dr. Maspara Gideon.
Gideon stated this on Wednesday in Akko during a sensitisation of stakeholders in the Local Government Area, shortly after a delegation paid a courtesy call on the Lamido Akko, Alh. Umar Muhammad, where the team secured the support of the traditional institution.
According to him, GoHealth is committed to revalidating its previous records where about 25,565 poor and vulnerable persons were enrolled in the scheme.
Gideon said, “We are here on a sensitisation of stakeholders on this programme for Basic Health Care Provision Fund because we are about to start revalidation and enrolment of beneficiaries into the programme.
“In the past years, we enrolled about 25,565 poor and vulnerable who have benefited from this programme and this year we are going to have up to 40,000, so there is a need to revalidate the old beneficiaries and enroll new ones also to join the programme.”
Commenting on the target of the sensitisation, Gideon said officials were to ensure that beneficiaries understood the scheme, adding National Identity Number would be required.
“We have come here to sensitise the community. We have put together community representatives, all community, religious leaders, groups and organisation of the poor and vulnerable, the aim is to ensure that they understand the categories of people that will benefit from this programme which include children under five, the aged, widows, Internally Displaced Persons and the physically challenged persons in the community.
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“We sensitised them to actually be on the lookout and mobilise such categories of people so that they can get their National Identity Number ready for when we start the enrolment which is coming up very soon in May,” Gideon added.
He continued saying that the target was to capture as many as possible towards attaining universal health coverage.
He said, “In this particular phase, as I said we are hoping that from 25,000 we will reach 40,000 enrollees, we are so happy with the enthusiasm and the reception that we got from the community members, the stakeholders actually were more interested and they asked us to make sure that this programme is a success and they have told us that they will take this message down and mobilise people to ensure that the right people are benefiting from this programme.
“We want to achieve universal health coverage for Gombe, so it is until every citizen of Gombe is covered, but we are happy with the progress that we are making.”
Also Speaking, the Chairman of Saif Advocacy Foundation, Alhassan Yahya, said the Basic Health Care Provision Fund is an initiative geared toward improving the health of the masses.
According to him, the rich can access medical support, however, with BHCF the poor can get qualitative care without worries.
He said, “This is an opportunity to reduce out-of-pocket expenses but for the masses, it is free of charge. This category of vulnerable includes widows, and people living with disabilities. It is something worthy of commendation as it closes the gap between the poor and vulnerable. Kudos to GoHealth, Gombe State Government and the Federal Government as this would promote better health indices in the state.”
On her part, the United Nations Children’s Fund representative, Martina Kangtun, during her address at the stakeholders’ engagement, said there would be a 10-day campaign geared towards vaccinating children against measles, meningitis, and yellow fever.
Kangtun also reminded participants that the Covid-19 awareness campaign is still on, urging them to support the drive towards reducing the spread.
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