The Public Complaints Commission (PCC) has called for desirable and quality health system in the country.
PCC made the call on Tuesday at a Town Hall meeting held at Ikeja.
The meeting had its theme as: “Systemic and proactive investigation into complaints of poor services rendered to beneficiaries of National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA)”.
In his address, the Honorable Chief Commissioner of PCC, Hon. Abimbola Ayo-Yusuf, said that healthy citizenry invariably builds a stronger and more virile nation.
“Nigeria government has been making tremendous attempts and consistently introduced various formative efforts over time to attain Universal Health Coverage for all,” he said.
Ayo-Yusuf said that the commission received complaints on poor services every day.
“Due to the avalanche of unabated complaints being received on a daily basis, the Nigeria ombudsman is, therefore, critical and really concern about the inherent fallout particularly as it affects the end users of this basic health outlets and facilities.
“The PCC, which is a body established by the Federal Government in October 1975, is to encourage and ensure social justice.
“This is in a bid to ultimately instill corporate discipline in the operation of all sector within the socio-economic and political landscape.
“The Nigeria Ombudsman has decided to organize this event in order to collectively, clinically diagnose and access the performance index of NHIA in view of the acknowledged reported complaints against many of these health service care provider sectors.
“The motive of the forum is to arrive on a holistic framework that shall guarantee everyone an improve quality health service delivery system that will be cost effective and beneficial to all parties”.
He said that President Muhammadu Buhari in 2022 signed into law to repeal the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) Act to 1999 and established the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA).
“The law makes it mandatory for all Nigerians and persons resident in Nigeria to be beneficiaries,” he said.
Hon. Afeez Odunewu, Federal Commissioner, Lagos State PCC, said that the commission received complaints of poor services rendered to beneficiaries of NHIA.
He said that the purpose of the meeting was to investigate and resolve issues and to ensure that quality health service was available to Nigerians.
According to him, the tenet of the commission is to bring justice and sanity into the society.
“The commission is created to fight for the downtrodden and the vulnerable who do not have the financial capacity to go for a case.
“If what rightly belongs to you has been taken, the question will set in; it may lead to death, and we don’t want that in the system, injustice anywhere and injustice everywhere.
“We are looking for a way to collaborate with all the 57 council chairmen for us to have area offices across the state.
“This is so that the downtrodden and the vulnerable can easily come in and lodge their complaints,” he said.
Also speaking, Federal Commissioner, Oyo State PCC, Mr Afolawuyo Bello, said that the commission listened to the complaints of citizens and addressed it.
“We hear their unpleasant treatments and experiences, we will meet with the regulatory bodies and take care of all the complaints.
“Nigerians must enjoy the services they paid for.
“Once you made complain through our website, you get your feedback with 24 hours.
“We are being proactive enough and we are already to serve Nigeria with better service” he said.
Also, Mrs Rita Chukwu, Deputy General Manager of NHIA and State Coordinator of Yaba state office, Lagos, , said that the authority was improving.
‘We have partnered with Roche and it has been able to subsidized cancer medicine for 55 patients about 80 per cent subsidy on cancer treatment, that is a plus to NHIA.
“We are trying everyday to improve to make sure that the healthcare of Nigerians are well taken care of.
“We have six tertiary hospitals that are handling cancer patients in Nigeria, one in each geo political zone.
“We have not stopped, we are still trying to sort out other people in the list,” she said.
According to her, NHIA is making sure that all it processes, procedure and documentation are digitalized under what is call E-NHIA.
“When it is through with all the hitches then it will completely flag off.”
Chukwu, who was representing the NHIA Zonal Coordinator, Mr Femi Akingbade,
said that the authority ensured that all complaints received were investigated and resolved.
“If any enrollee does not get better service, he or she has the right to query, or to call on us and we will step in,” she said.
She urged hospitals to treat all its enrollees with respect and should not discriminate in treating them.
She urged hospitals to educate especially their young doctors for them to understand.
This , she said, will make them be able to treat their enrollees better.
