By Mike Adeyemi
About 100,000 Kwara traders are to benefited from the health insurance scheme of the Kwara State Government, National Pilot has gathered.
The Kwara Health Insurance Scheme which was an initiative of the immediate past administration is meant to bring affordable health care delivery to the people of the state.
The Iyaloja General of Kwara State, Adenike Lambe disclosed this on Tuesday during a visit to her office by Kwara Health Insurance team led by Dr. Olubunmi Jetawo.
According to the market leader, “we are deeply grateful to the Kwara State Government for capturing Kwara traders in its health insurance programme.
“The Health Insurance brought to us is a good one. It means the wellbeing of Kwara people is of paramount to the government. We are grateful.
“Our members have started to register for the scheme as over 1,000 traders have shown interest and will be captured.
“It is appalling that lack of money to pay medical bills has led to many untimely deaths in Kwara. But with this Insurance scheme with just N6,000 per annum, Kwarans would be able to access good health care service.
“We were even asked to register at hospitals of our choice. The scheme is a good one. We thank the governor for this laudable programme,” further said.
Similarly, the Babaloja General of Kwara State, Alh. Tunde Jimoh said Kwara traders are impressed with the health insurance scheme brought to his members.
“In fact, we Kwara traders are highly impressed with this health insurance programme. We have encouraged all traders in the state to key into the scheme.
“We have about 170 markets with over 100,000 traders across the state and all of them are to be registered for this health insurance.
Earlier, the Executive Secretary of Kwara State Health Insurance Scheme, Dr. Olubunmi Jetawo said the wellbeing of Kwara traders is imperative as they contribute massively to economy of the state.
“I’m very impressed with the responses am getting from traders here today. I think all in all, we have five years projection we are working and within that time, we would have improved the health of all Kwarans and start to grow our economy.
“Without good health we can’t have improvement in the economy. These traders are the same people who contributed massively to our economy growth. So they need to be really taken care of, ” Jetawo said.
She added that the informal sector contributed about 60 per cent of Kwara population hence traders has to be captured under the scheme.
“The informal sector actually contributed 60 per cent of Kwara population and the people who have cohesive growth like marketers. This will be the largest sector that we need to pay attention to.
“There are also the group of people who don’t aggregate a lot of money at the same time we want to help them to provide platform and the intervention to have health insurance,” she stressed.
She however added that about 69 hospitals across the state have key into the scheme.
“Right now we have about 69 hospitals that have been accredited into the Scheme. The challenge is that hospital has to be accredited first to be part of this program.
“We need to access and values your facilities and quantity, quality of service before an hospital can be guarantee,” she added.
