Consumer Awareness and Perception of National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) Healthcare Services in Kogi East.
Abstract
This study assessed healthcare delivery of Nigerian National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) in Kogi East.
The scheme which took off in 2005 was established to reduce government’s healthcare financing burden and create access to affordable and efficient healthcare for all Nigerians.
Evidences on ground however show that access is limited, accredited Healthcare Providers (HCP)s operate under conditions of dilapidated buildings, obsolete equipment, unhygienic hospital environments, long wait lines and staff apathy.
Healthcare outcome is in doubt because of paucity of experiencedmedical personnel, leading to massive use of N.Y.S.C doctors.
This scenario, could hamper the achievement of NHIS promise of EASY ACCESS TO AFFORDABLE HEALTHCARE FOR ALL NIGERIANS?Under these circumstances, what is the enrollee perception of the programme in Kogi East?
This study assessedrespondents’ awareness and perception of the Scheme in Kogi East.A structured questionnaire with a Cronbach alpha coefficient of .938 (94%) reliability was administered on 379 enrollees in the area.
Study hypotheses were tested with the one-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and the one-sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov tests (K-S).
Introduction
Background of Study
Social Health Insurance (SHI) is a health sector financing alternative to the cash-and-carry system that had been in operation in the past.
The health burden in countries world over has continued to escalate. The most vulnerable are the poor while the wealthy are the healthier.
This means that whereas the economic statuses of the poor could not accommodate their health needs, the wealthy seem to spend less (in percentage terms) of their income on healthcare needs.
One of the basic principles of the World Health Organization (WHO) in the 1946 constitution states that “the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of healthcare is one of the fundamental rights of every human being without distinction of race, political belief, economic or social condition” (WHO, 2006).
This declaration brought to the fore one of the greatest challenges of governance in this century. It puts on governments the burden of creating and maintaining a healthcare system that will ensure complete physical, mental and social well-being of their peoples.
The responsibility of establishing, financing and sustaining a high profile health system that can facilitate the accomplishment of this noble obligation by governments has never come easy anywhere in the world.
These challenges coupled with the fact that national growth is a function of the wellness of the citizens, led Emperor Otto Vo Bismark of Germany to enact a mandatory law on “sickness funds” in the year 1883, (Awosika, 2005).
This “sickness funds” is what has metamorphosed into what is called Social Health Insurance (SHI) in almost all the countries of the world today.
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