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By Emmanuel Adeleke
Oyo State Health Insurance Agency (OYSHIA) has promised to register 10,000 people with Sickle Cell Anaemia (HbSS) into health insurance.
The Executive Secretary of the agency, Dr. Sola Akande, made the promise while featuring on a radio programme in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital.
“We are planning to bring people that have HbSS into Oyo State Health Insurance scheme.
“We are planning again to do 10,000 and we are working together with two NGOs that are taking care of people living with HbSS.
“They have given us some names. I said to them that we don’t want rich people that are living with HbSS, because having HbSS doesn’t necessarily make you vulnerable.
“We are trying to bring in all these set of people; 10,000 primary school pupils, 10,000 people living with disabilities and 10,000 people of HbSS.
“We supposed that within the next three to four months, we should be able to get these category of people into health insurance.
“When insurance gets to the poor, that is when we have health insurance,” he said.