The Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) has commenced the enrollment of vulnerable pregnant women into the FCT Health Insurance Scheme (FHIS).
The administration also distributed 500 safe delivery kits to vulnerable pregnant women in the city on Thursday.
At the flag-off ceremony of the enrollment and distribution of the kits by the FCTA in collaboration with USAID, mandate secretary, Health Services and Environment in the FCTA, Dr Dolapo Fasawe, said no woman deserves to die over birth complications.
She said health insurance is a key focus of the Nyesom Wike administration, adding that the dedication to the health insurance scheme by the minister aligns with President Bola Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda.
“Health insured is health assured. It is an abomination for any pregnant woman to die due to childbirth complications.
“It is not only during delivery that women have complications; at times it occurs after delivery. It has been documented that there are post-natal infections these pregnant women have that they don’t treat and could lead to death.
“Now, the insurance scheme covers antenatal care of the pregnant woman and it covers them during delivery.
“During delivery, we have added an innovation: the safe delivery kits having realised that there are many women who go to traditional birth attendants. For example, they go to primary healthcare centres for delivery and these people use instruments that are not sterilised but these packs here are absolutely sterilised and the things inside protect the mother, the child and the caregiver.
“The essence of this is to encourage pregnant women to register for health insurance. This pack ordinarily would cost about N50,000 and the normal practice before now is that, when you come for delivery, they would list everything in here and ask you to go and buy them but now we are giving it out for free once you are registered on our health insurance scheme,” she said.
Flagging off the enrollment, the minister of state for FCT, Mariya Mahmoud, said funds are now available to enable everyone on the scheme to have access to quality healthcare services without any financial shock.
Mahmoud, represented by her chief of staff, Abdullahi Kauranmata, warned that the FCTA would not tolerate delays in the release of funds by Health Management Organisations (HMOs) and for other services to the hospitals for the scheme.
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