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Oyo State Health Insurance Agency (OYSHIA) has commenced the enrollment of retirees into the health insurance scheme.
The Executive Secretary of OYSHIA, Dr Sola Akande, disclosed this in a recent chat.
He said the agency had a meeting with the leadership of Nigeria Union Pensioners (NUP) in the state on how retirees can come into the scheme.
Akande stated that retirees that would be enrolled into the health insurance scheme include civil servants, from both the federal and state government and retirees from the private sector, stressing that the goal of the agency is to enroll all residents of Oyo State.
“We are reassuring all retirees that we will move to all axis of Oyo State and we are working with NUP leadership to ensure we are enrolling the right people and we are validating all the people we are enrolling with the list of retirees that we got from the relevant ministries and agencies of Oyo State Government.
“Pensioners that are earning below N5000 for their monthly stipend will be enrolled on the basic care provision form and they won’t have to pay for two years, and those that are earning above N5000 will be enrolled into the community based health insurance at the rate of N4000 instead of N8000. The N4000 will also not be taken at once; we’ll take N1000 per month to make it easy.
“They will be able to buy drugs at a lower price and some surgeries can be done without paying heavily,” he said.
Akande further explained that the remaining N4000 is coming from the state government, noting that the government is trying to help by not allowing them to spend all their stipend on health issues.
“NUP have a facility that is about 90% done and once it is completed, it will be registered on board and it will become another source of income for the system. Once it is enlisted, they will begin to take capitation and that is a lot of burden taken away for the leadership of pensioners,” Akande added.