Ambode Hosts Queen Of Netherlands, Says Health Insurance Starts 2018

Governor Akinwunmi Ambode of Lagos has said an Health Insurance Scheme that will expand access to healthcare delivery in the state will commence in the early part of 2018, adding that necessary efforts to ensure the success of the scheme were being put in place. Ambode made this known while receiving the Queen of the Netherlands, Her Majesty, Maxima Zorreguieta Cerruti, on Tuesday when she paid a courtesy visit to the Governor.

He commended the visitor for her efforts at advancing issues relating to healthcare and financial inclusion.

The governor said: “We are on the path of positive improvement on the things that have to do with health. Like the Queen rightly said, we have a law that allows us to do the Health Insurance Scheme which is targeted at the most-needy and the poor that cannot afford ordinary healthcare.

“We believe that if we pull the resources of every other person in the state together, those that cannot afford will be able to have a chance to access healthcare which is the main objective why the Queen has been going round to promote good healthcare for people generally.

“We want to say that we are deeply committed to that vision and we are committed to that ideal, and also say that we will do everything possible to make sure that the Health Insurance Scheme starts up early next year and we can now allow people to have some sense of inclusion which is one of the basic principles of good governance.

“The main essence of good governance is for us to be able to carry everybody along. In a cosmopolitan city like Lagos that we have a population of almost 22 million people and the majority can really not afford the things we want them to, and so we believe strongly that a partnership like this is one in the right direction.”

He stressed that it was time to call on the Federal Government to scale up financial inclusion with the view to expanding access for more people to benefit, while also calling for escalation of mobile banking to ensure that more people from the rural areas have access to finance and all issues connected.

The governor said the present administration under his watch, was working hard to bequeath a functional and affordable healthcare system to the people of the state, just as he assured that the state government would do everything possible to support the United Nations initiative being championed by Queen Maxima.

Queen Maxima, who was visiting Nigeria in her capacity as the Special Advocate to United Nations’ Secretary General on financial inclusion for development, said she was impressed by the initiatives of the state government to improve service delivery, especially towards expanding access to affordable healthcare.

She particularly lauded the health insurance scheme of the state government, which legal framework had already been put in place, saying that governor Ambode deserved commendation for coming up with such laudable effort.

She said: “Today I had opportunity to visit two clinics in the state where I saw the new pilot project in which you (Governor Ambode), has also started looking into- which is to make health insurance possible even to the poorest of the people.

“I was very impressed by the leadership that the state of Lagos has taken as to coming up with a law which makes health insurance mandatory and also to be able to plan for the future and you are already doing some credit to some health facilities which of course will improve efficiency of a lot of these institutions. I commend you for your efforts and I will like to know from you Mr. Governor what is your commitment on the future in this field,” she said.