The commissioner for health in Ogun, Dr Tomi Coker, has lamented the low enrolment rate in the state’s health insurance scheme, especially from the formal sector.

Ms Coker, who spoke at the breakdown of the state’s 2024 budget on Monday in Abeokuta, said the current enrolment of 150,000 people in Ogun represented two per cent of its population.

According to her, this indicates a need for increased awareness and uptake of the health insurance scheme.

Ms Coker emphasised the necessity for broader participation in the scheme to ensure that residents have access to comprehensive healthcare coverage.

Gov. Dapo Abiodun had, in November 2023, presented a budget of N703.03 billion to the House of Assembly and subsequently assented to it.

The budget has the theme “Sustained Growth and Development”.

Mr Coker said since the health insurance was launched by the state government, it had only enrolled 150,000 persons, out of which 90,000 were from the informal sector.

To address the challenges around low enrolment, Ms Coker added that the ministry had initiated measures to drive greater participation from the formal sector while hoping for an improved performance in 2024.

“Since the health insurance was launched by His Excellency, the governor, in 2022, we have only enrolled 65,000 in the formal sector.

“However, the informal sector, which we haven’t even launched, is engaging more, having enrolled like 90,000 people, making about 150,000 Ogun state residents.

“We’re having challenges with the formal sector, which are the unions. We try to encourage them, and we’ve met with them severally; they’ve asked us to change the law to reinvest the money so that when it’s deducted from their salaries, the money goes straight to the scheme.

“We’ve been to the House of Assembly; we’ve amended the law that set up the health insurance to ensure their requests have been attended to, but in spite of these, about 50,000 civil servants are yet to engaged.

“What is happening now is that civil servants are now buying the insurance individually, which is not efficient for us.

“We’ve had several media publicity and road shows in all four zones of the state. His Excellency also introduced the free health insurance for pregnant women,” she said.

The commissioner advised citizens to tap into the huge benefits provided by the insurance scheme, noting that many enrollees only keep their cards at home without enjoying any of the benefits the scheme has to offer.

She disclosed that the ministry plans to establish kiosks in major markets, describing it as a strategic approach to increasing awareness and accessibility to health insurance services.

She assured residents of efficient service delivery, saying, “We’re improving on our service delivery just as we have monitoring teams that go out to all facilities to ensure quality service delivery”.

(NAN)