Gombe state government says it has identified and verified no fewer than 114 health facilities from across the state to benefit from Basic Health Care Provision Funds (BHCPF) in preparation for the implementation of the State contributory healthcare scheme.
According to the executive secretary of the Gombe State Contributory Healthcare Management Agency (GoHealth) Dr. Abubakar Musa, implementation of the scheme which introduced by the state governor Muhammad Inuwa Yahaya, has hit top gear with an agreement signed between the agency and the State’s Primary Health Care Development Agency (PHCDA).
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He explained that the collaboration was to ensure the provision of a quality health care service delivery to the people of Gombe State. “Today we are making a very important step in our journey towards achieving universal health coverage in Gombe State”.
Dr. Abubakar stated this at the groundbreaking ceremony to mark the signing of the service level agreement of the BHCPF in Gombe. He revealed that the service level agreement was to enrolled beneficiaries to start accessing the basic minimum package of health services.
“Those beneficiaries were selected, using the state social register targeting the poor and vulnerable, the exercise was done in collaboration with facilities especially the ward development committees and they are ready to start accessing health care.
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“With the two implementing agencies; the PHCDA and GoHealth there will be mutual contracts between the facilities and these two agencies to deliver quality services to our people,” Dr. Abubakar said.
On his part, the Executive Secretary of the State PHCDA Dr. Abdurrahman Shuaibu explained that the BHCPF was funds put in place by the Federal Government in 2014, to fund activities of the Primary Health Care (PHC) for effective service delivery and provide financial accessibility as well as emergency medical service.
“In Gombe the State Governor, Alhaji Inuwa Yahya keyed into the program by providing N100 million as counterpart funds and to kick-start the process we started with accreditation of health care facilities, capacity building for our health workers, and also the final verification of health care facilities.
The state’s commissioner of health, Dr. Habu Dahiru said in his remarks that the facilities selected were to flag off the program and that it would be scaled up to other secondary health facilities, including privately owned clinics in the state.
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He expressed satisfaction that all the 114 facilities visited had been cleared and accredited by the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) to provide basic health care.
However, Daily Telescope reports that workers at the local government level and primary school teachers had kicked against the implementation of the contributory healthcare scheme due to the government’s failure to implement the N30, 000 minimum wage across the state.
