Kaduna Agency Kicks Off Health Insurance Programme

Kaduna State Contributory Health Management Authority (KADCHMA) has kicked off the pilot phase of its “Produce for Health Insurance (P-for-HI)” programme.

It is in line with the Kaduna State governor Uba Sani’s “Sustain Manifesto”, especially in strengthening the standard of healthcare at the upgraded 255 primary health centres in each ward and enhancing social welfare programmes and pro-poor interventions.

The director-general of KADCHMA, Hassan Abubakar, stated this yesterday when he spoke to the media in Kaduna.

Abubakar said the pilot programme of the “Produce for Health Insurance” was launched in collaboration with Tomato Jos which started with over 400 enrollees.

He said the produce for health insurance allows the farmer to understand exactly what produce of his farming would be set aside for the entire household, from the beginning of the farming season. “So, if you have two, three, or five hectares, then you know what portion will be used,” he added.

“For example, today, a bag of maize in the market costs almost forty thousand Naira and this allows you to enrol yourself, your wife and two or three other persons.

“So, two bags of corn in a year helps you to address your family needs in a year and that’s what we are selling to the farming community in Kaduna State. It allows you to know exactly what you have from when you’re about to plan. What we are doing as a pilot is that we intend to scale up to other communities across the state.”

Abubakar further said that the programme will be extended to other communities in the state where other industrialists will be partners, to ensure that workers keyed into the scheme.

He expressed delight over the partnership with Tomato Jos because farmers are exposed to hardship due to the nature of their work and farming exposes them to many health hazards which cannot be solved with out-of-pocket spending, saying that the contributing health insurance scheme is the best option for them.