The Minister of Health debunks a statement made by the Minister of Defence suggesting a new HMO for civil servants, stressing universal coverage.
Amid controversy, the Minister of Health and Social Welfare has announced that there are no preparations made by the federal government to establish a new Health Maintenance Organisation (HMO) solely to cater for federal civil servants.
The new HMO, according to a post by the Ministry of Defence on its website on Thursday, said the new HMO would be called Federal Civil Service Health Maintenance Limited.
The statement cited Dr Ibrahim Kana, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Defence, claiming that President Bola Tinubu had approved the establishment of a new HMO known as FCSHML.
However, Prof. Muhammad Pate, the Minister of Health and Social Welfare, disregarded the announcement by the Ministry of Defence on the approval of the establishment of a new HMO for civil servants.
Pate stated in his post handle on X: “I am very surprised to see this announcement on a matter that is far from being concluded. President Bola Tinubu’s administration is focused in the health sector on expanding financial protection for all Nigerians, not only a few privileged ones.
“The forces that held back progress on health insurance (only about 7 per cent population or 16 million of Nigerians covered in more than 20 years) woke up to undermine efforts to reform the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) to accelerate coverage for all Nigerians.”
Pate concluded, urging the proponents of the ‘project’ to tarry a bit, and not conflate power with knowledge, and to work constructively as part of the NHIA reforms. Furthermore, he pressed that all those involved to carefully consider the implications of undermining Nigeria’s progress on Universal Health Coverage (UHC) for narrow and very short-term interests.
