Gombe State Governor, Alhaji Muhammadu Inuwa Yahaya has directed the state ministry of health to immediately begin the process of establishing a state insurance scheme in order to provide financial protection to the people against outrageous health expenditures.
The Governor gave the directive during a meeting with a joint team from United Nations Children Fund, UNICEF and the Federal Ministry of Health in Abuja.
Governor Yahaya expressed disappointment over the profile of Gombe state in the Basic Health Care Provision Fund, BHCPF, where the past administration failed to utilize the opportunity of the initiative to earn enough funding from the world bank through the Federal Ministry of Health.
Based on the 2018 results, Gombe State earned only 1.8 Million Dollars whereas the neighbouring Yobe state secured 29 Million Dollars funding through the scheme because of its fulfillment of the counterpart funding element of the partnership.
Consequently, Governor Yahaya directed that a letter of expression of interest be submitted immediately to the Federal Ministry of Health and promised to fulfil all other requirements needed for the state to key into the BHCPF programme, which include the payment of 100 million naira counterpart funds and establishment of state supported insurance scheme.
He also solicited the help of the National Programme Managment Unit of the Federal Ministry of Health and UNICEF in identifying reasons why the state is lagging behind and suggest ways of improvement.
BHCPF is funded from 1 per cent of the Federal Government's consolidated revenue to strengthen the provision of primary health care services in the country.
Earlier speaking, the UNICEF Chief of Health in Nigeria, Dr. Sarjana Bhardwaj commended Governor Yahaya's disposition towards the welfare of his people, saying her meeting with him was the first of its kind she has had with any new Governor in Nigeria. This, she said is a demonstration of the Governor's zeal to move the trajectory of the Health sector forward.
On the 'Saving One Million Lives' programme for results, which is a federal government initiative with funding support from the World Bank to increase the utilisation and quality of high impact reproductive, child health and nutrition interventions, Dr. Sarjana disclosed that the programme is being implemented in all the 36 states and the FCT and pays for results in 6 health indicators.
However, she noted that Gombe state has been doing very poorly in the programme since its commencement owing to non utilisation of the opportunity provided, where states could earn more than 30 million US Dollars per year.
She accepted the proposal by Governor Inuwa Yahaya to send in technical experts to work with Gombe state to dive into the nitty gritty of the factors responsible for the poor performance.
Ismaila Uba Misilli
Senior Special Assistant
( Media and Publicity)
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