The Osun Health Insurance Agency (OSHIA) has expressed its intention to enrol all pregnant women in the state in order to have access to good and affordable healthcare services in the state
The agency also hinted that it would soon start training interpreters who would be acting as middlemen between people living with disability, especially the deaf and dumps.
The Executive Secretary of the agency, Dr Rasaq Akindele dropped the hints on Thursday while featuring on the news and current affairs program tagged NewsPoints, organized by the members of Osun NUJ Correspondents’Chapel, Osogbo.
According to the ES, “We have intentions of registering all the pregnant women in the state into the scheme because pregnancy requires adequate attention, we want to ensure that after nine months everybody should be happy after pregnancy. We have put it forward to the governor and we are waiting for the approval to get all pregnant women enrolled to get free treatment”
He further explained: “We will train nurses, and other health workers that are in various government hospitals on how to interpret signs so that at a particular time that any deaf or dumb pregnant woman comes to the hospital somebody would be there to interpret the signs to the doctors and the nurses on duty to get adequate health”.
Speaking on the achievements of the agency, since he took over the mantle of power, Dr Akindele said no fewer than 23,000 retirees have been enrolled on the Osun Health Insurance Agency of the State Government
He said it was part of the State government’s effort to ensure that retired civil servants received their health benefits after their mandatory service years adding that more people will be enrolled on the program
He said OSHIA being an Agency saddled with the responsibility of ensuring, the provision of health insurance schemes to the citizens of the state hinted that there is continuous enrollment for those who are retiring from service on a daily basis.
While saying many people have benefited from the Agency since Governor Ademola Adeleke took over the leadership of the state disclosed that enrollment of pensioners has been digitalising and as such has made it easier for them to have access to health facilities for their health issues.
According to Dr Akindele who lamented the rate of ignorance of people about OSHIA said the Agency had been carrying out Eligtentment programs for people to know how to go about their health issues, said despite that many are yet to understand how the Agency operates.
He said, “One of the major challenges the Agency is having is about education. Many people still believed in the analogue way of doing registration of the health insurance scheme. We have gone digital and many people have yet to follow the trend of things. This is why we have to partner with media organisations for various Enlightenment programs of our Agency .”
Dr Akindele who said the Agency will continue an aggressive awareness campaign for the people of the state hinted that many OSHIA staff have been deployed to all the local government councils areas of the state for effective mobilization of pensioners and also to gather accurate statistics of retirees.
He stated that on his resumption of office, he has been offsetting accumulated debts inherited adding that the Governor has been of great assistance to the Agency especially in the area of funds.
The OSHIA boss blamed the causes of a few recorded deaths of patient especially those of surgical operations on ignorance and lack of knowledge on how things work in the Agency saying such things had been addressed and made simple for people to access.
“We have a code which anybody can go through our website to get information and get all access to the health insurance scheme program. We will continue to do our best to ensure that every citizen of this state benefits and cue into this program because health is wealth .”
