Francis Sardauna in Katsina
The Katsina State Government has enrolled 258,675 civil servants in the formal sector programme of its contributory healthcare scheme, and 53,241 vulnerable persons are expected to be covered under the Basic Healthcare Provision Fund (BHCPF).
The Director-General of the state Contributory Healthcare Management Agency, Muhammed Tukur Ibrahim, disclosed this yesterday during the monthly briefing of the state Ministry of Information, Culture and Home Affairs.
The monthly briefing, according to the ministry, is in exercise of its statutory responsibility of ensuring genuine and objective dissemination of information to the public on the activities of the state government under the leadership of Governor Aminu Bello Masari.
He explained that a survey by the scheme revealed that between 35 and 45 per cent of the consolidated salaries of civil servants across the state were being spent on healthcare services, hence the introduction of the contributory healthcare scheme.
Ibrahim said: “Since the introduction of the scheme, we were able to make an analysis to come out with 2.5 per cent of consolidated salaries of all the state civil servants to effectively and sustainably manage a spouse and four biological children below the age of 18.
“From the outset of the enrolment exercise, we were able to register 258,675 enrollees that are currently assessing healthcare services across the state and credit 422 healthcare facilities in the state for giving healthcare services to the enrollees.”
He noted that one per cent of the state statutory allocation has been dedicated to the state Contributory Healthcare Management Agency as equity fund for the vulnerable groups and matching grant for BHCPF to tackle the risk pool of the scheme.
He reiterated that the contributory healthcare scheme would reduce catastrophic healthcare expenditure among the people of the state, stating that adequate funds would be accorded to the scheme for efficient and quality health services for all the citizenry.
