The FCT Health and Human Services Secretariat (HHSS), has inaugurated the FCT Health Insurance Scheme (FHIS) call centre for easy access to health care in the territory.
The Acting Secretary, HHSS, Dr Muhammad Kawu, said universal health care coverage was an important agenda of any government.
Kawu said access to health care was always a challenge in spite of availability of services, adding that having hospitals, personnel, equipment and drugs were not enough factors to ensure health care delivery.
He said the call globally was how to achieve universal health care coverage for the community, society and country at large.
According to him, in Nigeria, we are struggling but with this unveiling in the FCT, we are on course.
“I believe that in the nearest future, we are going to achieve more. As I said, you can provide the equipment, the personnel, the drugs, but if the people do not have financial access, they do not have money to access this service, it is equal to nothing. Health insurance is a tool to use for universal health coverage as you are providing the service both at primary and secondary level”.
Kawu advised members of the public to make the best use of the facility, assuring that the FCT would ensure use of the centre to promote health care and attend to issues concerning health.
In another development, Kawu said the administration was carrying out community testing and had established a lot of sample collection centres due to the second wave of COVID-19 pandemic.
He stressed the need for residents of the territory to be tested, adding that it was sad that cases of the pandemic were on the rise in the FCT.
“We have fought this Coronavirus before, and I can assure you that we will tackle even this second wave of the virus”.
The Director, FHIS, Dr Ahmed Dan-Fulani said the call centre was unveiled to improve the experience of all enrolees as they access the services.
Dan-Fulani said the call centre would serve as service centre for all activities in terms of enrolment, as well as other complaints in line with health care delivery.
According to him, the call centre will operate 24 hours as the FHIS will be opening six other call centres in other parts of the FCT to help in health care delivery.
The aim he said was to ensure that we achieve the universal health coverage standard in Nigeria.
“I believe that If we do this, more and more people will be able to access this service. We expect that the experiences of those using our services will be better now with the call Centre and it will be easy for them to access our services”.
