By Mike Adeyemi
An Ilorin-based Non Governmental Organisation, House and Street Kids Welfare Initiative has registered about 135 blind persons into health insurance scheme.
Speaking with this medium at Koro-Afoju, Ilorin, yesterday, the Executive Director of the NGO, Funmi Olusope said the event was in commemoration of the 2018 Universal Health Coverage Day, which preaches that everybody should have access to good quality health care.
According to her, we are working in collaboration with NHIS in the state because the universal health coverage is all about NHIS which brings health cost to the level that is affordable to the common man.
โLike the people working with the government, 5 per cent of their salary goes into NHIS, but here at Koro-Afoju, these are vulnerable people who couldnโt afford the high cost of medical services.
โWhat we do is to incorporate them into a database, ask them to pay N2,000 per year and get needed health care services throughout that year. We have registered them at Temitope Hospital, Gambari where they will be attended to.โ
Olusope added that if 1,000 of physically challenged persons are registered in the NHIS, and in a year about 100 of them had health related challenges, the fund will be spent on those who may have taken ill.
โAside this, we have bigger plans for the blind come January. We want to start a school for streets children in Ilorin, provide them basic education for six months and later we will reintegrate them into the public school.
โWhen we came to Koro-Afoju, we heard that the Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki was with them and that he gave the blind people some money to improve their living,ย we have given them drugs for malaria fever and other ailments.โ
Speaking on behalf of Serikin, Koro-Afoju, Malam Mohammed Lawal said the NGOโs intervention was timely adding that the people of the community appreciate the gesture.
