No fewer than 38,680 residents across the 18 Local Government Areas of Cross River State have so far enrolled into the State’s Health Insurance Scheme  out of the 150,000 target for this year.

The Director General of the Cross River State Health Insurance Agency, Dr Godwin Iyala who made the disclosure on Wednesday while giving an update on the agency’s activities and performances in the last one year.

He said the enrolment follows the migration of the Health Insurance Agency to the Basic Health Care Provision Fund (BHCF) 2.0, which makes it compulsory for every enrolee to have a National Identification Number, NIN to keep track of Nigerians on the scheme.

Because of this, he said all those who enrolled before the implementation but had no NIN had to be removed, adding that the number reflects only those who have NIN.

He explained that the beneficiaries were registered under different packages, including the public sector, the informal sector, and vulnerable groups, adding that the agency is now moving into the Tertiary Institution Social Health Insurance Programme, TISHIP.

According to him, many of the enrollees are benefiting daily from medical services rendered at 196 healthcare facilities spread across 196 electoral wards of the 18 LGAs of the state.

Dr Iyala further announced that CRSHIA has digitalised all its processes to ensure easy access to effective healthcare services for enrollees, which has so far improved efficiency and transparency.

He used the occasion of the briefing to call on healthcare providers in the state to be professional in their conduct and to give enrollees the desired services, saying such conduct would increase public confidence in the insurance scheme.

The Director General attributed the feats the agency achieved over the years to the support from Governor Bassey Otu and his wife, Bishop Eyoanwan Otu who has been branded Ambassador of Cross River State Health Insurance Agency.

“I want to thank Her Excellency, who is one of our biggest supporters, for single-handedly paying for and enrolling 500 aged persons into our scheme.

Iyala enumerated some of the challenges faced by the agency, including inadequate funding and logistics, lack of human resources, and low number of enrollees due to no NIN, among others

While appreciating good-spirited individuals who had adopted and paid for indigent persons in their communities, he urged other well-meaning citizens to emulate the gesture to expand coverage for the poor and vulnerable.

Meanwhile, Iyala assured that the agency would continue to strive hard towards achieving its mandate, which aligns with the broader goal of universal health coverage, stressing that the agency’s enrolment drive deliberately targeted civil servants, artisans, and traders in the informal sector, students in tertiary institutions, as well as poor and vulnerable households identified through community structures.

“The 196 accredited facilities delivering services under the scheme are distributed across the 196 electoral wards of the 18 LGAs to ensure that enrollees in both urban centres and rural communities have access points for healthcare.

“The agency had digitalised its system to cover registration, premium tracking, claims management and feedback mechanisms.

“The digitalisation has helped in reducing bottlenecks and allowed enrollees to interact with the system more seamlessly,” he pointed out.