The stage is now set for the National Health Insurance Scheme’s 8-city experiential campaign across the six geo-political zones. The experiential -marketing campaign, the first of its kind in the history of the public sector in Nigeria, is aimed at reaching the generality of Nigerians, especially the grass-roots and the informal sector with the NHIS corporate focal point, “ easy access to health care for all’.
This is part of strategic initiatives of the new administration of Dr. Femi Thomas, to lead the Scheme towards the attainment of President Goodluck Jonathan’s mandate for the NHIS to provide cover for a minimum of 30% of Nigerians by 2015.
The Management of the Scheme has since reviewed the target upwards to 40%, taking into account the strength and opportunities available to the organization.
A statement from the Head of Media and Public Relations of NHIS, Ayo Osinlu, said the new management of NHIS under the leadership of Dr. Femi Thomas is determined to realign and deepen the capacity of the Scheme to offer to Nigerians, a socially responsible and responsive institution, able and ready to provide rapid access to quality, affordable and available health care for all categories of Nigerians.
In this context, NHIS has developed and re-energised a set of special programmes, to extend to all classes of Nigerians across social and economic borderlines, opportunities to enjoy effective healthcare without financial barriers.
These include the Nigerian Mobile Health Insurance Programme (NMHIP), Public Primary Schools Health Insurance Programme (PPSHIP), Tertiary Institutions Social Health Insurance Programme (TISHIP), and the Community-Based Social Health Insurance Programme (CBSHIP), among others.
He stated, “” the NMHIP is a GSM- based activation platform, set to register users of all mobile telephone networks for the NHIS benefits, just at the dial of the relevant code for each network. With the cumulative recharge of N12, 000 per annum, payable at once or at N1, 000 per month, N250 per week or N35 per day, every subscriber will receive access to NHIS accredited hospitals anywhere, anytime through the use of their permanent NHIS MTS ID Number which will be provided by every mobile network”.
Though the rates are constant across the board of all networks, the codes to be dialed differ with each network. Subscribers are therefore advised to be on the lookout for the messages from their networks on how to get on the train of this life-enriching health plan.
With the scheme also comes freedom for subscribers to choose their Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) and Healthcare Providers from over 7000 accredited hospitals in Nigeria, while enrollees have unlimited number of visits to the hospitals for treatment.
The 8-city experiential campaign will take the form of Village Square Meetings, Road Shows and Market storms, and will include 8 cities in 6 different geo-political regions of the Country.
A Road and Market storm in Lagos on the 20th of October signals the take-off of these events. The ride makes a brief stop at Agege on the 21st of October for the Village Square meeting. Ibadan gets its turn on the 23rd of October when its Village Square meeting will take place. The Road Show at Asaba, the Market Storm of Onitsha, and another Road show at Enugu will keep the experiential ride in the South East on the 24th, the 25th, and 27th, of October respectively.
To bring this message to the Northerners is the Road show in Bauchi on the 29th, another Road Show in Kaduna on the 31st of October and a Village Square Meeting on the 3rd of November in Kano.
The Abuja Road Show and Market storm on the 5th and 6th of November will wrap up this first stage of these experiential events.
The scheme intends to take the Campaign to all the 36 states by 2015.
