Chukwu floats parallel firm for police
The National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) is in danger of being undermined by surreptitious moves by Health Minister, Onyebuchi Chukwu, to force the registration of a phony company to manage the health needs of members of the Nigeria Police and their families.
The Police today has about one million personnel registered under the NHIS and they are currently being managed by nine Health Maintenance Organisations, (HMOs). But in a memo of September 9, 2011, the Health Minister wrote under reference number HMH/ABJ/032/Vol.VI/299 directing the Chairman of the board of the NHIS to “accredit the Nigeria Police Health Maintenance Limited, as a Health Maintenance Organisation, to enable it commence active operations.”
The Health Minister claimed in his memo that his directive was on the back of a presidential approval granted by President Goodluck Jonathan, to whom the Police Inspector- General, Hafiz Ringim, had appealed on August 17, via a six page letter titled “Request for presidential approval for the accreditation of Police Health maintenance Limited, HMO.”
Investigation by Business Day showed that contrary to the claims by the IG, the HMO he presented to the President is indeed a private limited liability company which was registered in 2007, at the Corporate Affairs Commission but has ever since failed to secure NHIS accreditation.
Curiously, one of the directors of the company is a former senator, Ngele Sylvanus Ngiji, of number 10 Vanern Crescent , off Euphrates Street , Wuse Abuja and it is believed he is the primary promoter of the Police HMO Limited.
In the past, some senior police officers began a scheme to directly manage the healthcare requirements of members of the force, by setting up Police clinics at Police Commands in some locations in the country and in some cases, policemen were cajoled into registering at these clinics, with the sole purpose being to secure huge cash monthly from the nine private HMOs.
However, contrary to claims, policemen and their families hardly patronise these clinics because of their poor state of health care delivery, while the payments collected monthly from the police clinics by the Police hierarchy, never accounted for HMOs in the form of capitation fees.
In his appeal to the president, the Police IG claimed: “the implementation of the scheme (NHIS) is yet to be felt by the Police personnel and their families. Five years into the scheme, a large number of police personnel are yet to be enrolled.
There are no visible structures in place by the HMOs imposed on the Force by NHIS, to address the numerous discernible shortcomings in their operations. There are no discernible mechanisms to cater for the numerous complaints by Police personnel, arising from the poor quality healthcare service delivery by the HMOs.”
Business Day learnt that the Health & Managed Care Association of Nigeria, (HMCAN) has written to the Health Minister, dismissing the claims by the Police IG, saying: “The motive behind the accreditation of this company (Police HMO Ltd) is suspect, as the men and women of the Police are already being covered by established nine HMOs with proven track record. It is worthy of note, that evidence abounds of compulsion upon men and women of the Police to utilise the police clinics.
“We are not opposed to the registration and accreditation of a new HMO in whatever name, but this company using the Nigeria Police as cover by private individuals, made up of retired public servants, smacks of abuse of due process.
”We protest the accreditation of this company sponsored by a group of individuals and insist that due process was not followed,” the association said in its letter of September 23, 2011.
Analysts say policy inconsistencies in Nigeria mean that instead of encouraging the pooling of funds to promote investment into the health sector, the government might unwittingly be reducing the incentive to make that investment and the only real beneficiaries are countries like India , which now earn significant foreign revenues from Nigerians fleeing abroad in search of better healthcare.
