Access to healthcare: NHIA advises enrollees to register parents, relatives
The National Health Insurance Authority has advised enrollees to take advantage of the scheme by enrolling
their parents and relatives as extra dependents.
The authority’s Coordinator in Adamawa, Mr Aliyu Abdul-Hakeem, gave the advice at the Sixth NHIA Stakeholders Meeting on Tuesday in Yola.
He said each enrollee had the right to register four extra dependents at the cost of N15,000 per annum.
According to him, enrollees can also access services outside their state of registration in hospitals where they find
themselves by providing their NHIA number and name of their Health Management Organisation (HMO).
He described the meeting as special, saying “it is an avenue for NHIA to hear enrollees’ experiences with their health providers
and the HMOs, and to better their performance.”
Abdul-Hakeem said that with the new NHIA Act, there are lots of reforms as it is now mandatory for all Nigerians to be
enrolled, including foreigners residing in the country.
The coordinator added that the authority had been mandated to enroll no fewer than 83 million vulnerable people to
access services across the 36 states of the federation and the FCT.
He said, “it is no more business as usual as action will be taken against any health provider or HMO that
refuses to discharge their responsibility accordingly.”
Abubakar Hamma-Adama, the Director, National Population Commission (NPC), described the meeting as timely and
thanked NHIA for organising the meeting.
He said that before now, enrollees had no such opportunity to know things about the NHIA.
Hamma-Adama, also the Chairman of the occasion, urged participants to step down knowledge and information
gained to their respective staff.
Felicia Maindo, a participant, appreciated NHIA for organising the meeting, saying enrollees now understood their rights, unlike before.
She said many enrollees had problems when their children attained the age of 18 years as they would automatically be deregistered as
dependants of the enrollee.
“But during the meeting, we got to know that we can still enroll them as extra dependents.”
