Corps members can now benefit from health insurance scheme

The federal executive council (FEC) has approved the
inclusion of National Youth Service Corps (NYSC)
members in the country’s National Health Insurance
(NHIS) scheme.

Isaac Adewole, minister of health, disclosed this to
state house correspondents after the weekly FEC
meeting on Wednesday in Abuja.

He said the inclusion was aimed at preventing the sad
incidents of deaths of corps members across the
country.

Last year, two corps members last year died in their
respective orientation camps.

They are Ifedolapo Oladepo, who died at the Kano
state camp as well as Ukeme Asuquo who died at the
Zamfara state camp.

The minister also said the inclusion was one of the
memoranda presented to FEC by the health ministry.
“Council approved the memo that henceforth we will
include NYSC members in the National Health
Insurance Scheme (NHIS) across the country,” he
said.

“This will guarantee access to quality care across the
country, prevent unnecessary deaths and also ensure
our youth corps members receive the highest
attainable level of care across the country.”

The minister said the ministry also presented a
memorandum to FEC on the renewal of the
memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the
federal ministry of health and the United Nations Fund
for Population Activities (UNFPA).

He said the MoU deals with the procurement and
distribution of contraceptives commodities across the
country.

According to him, “the federal government has the
policy of free distribution of contraceptives
commodities and services across the country”.

“We have renewed the MoU today to last for the next
four years between 2017 and 2020. And that we will
also continue to provide effective safe voluntary
contraceptives services across,” he said.

Adewole added that the ministry also presented a
report on the state of public health services across the
country.

“We have formally declared the Meningitis outbreak
over in the country,” he said.

“We also informed FEC that we have not recorded new
cases of Polio in the country in 2017. We have
recorded seven new cases of Lessa fever across the
country and the cholera outbreak in Kwara state has
also fizzled out.”

TheCable