By Wahab Quadri

The Lagos State Government is developing health insurance packages for different categories of residents, including low-income earners, as it moves to enforce compulsory health insurance and improve access to affordable healthcare.

The Commissioner for Health, Prof. Akin Abayomi, disclosed this at the Business of Health Conference in Lagos, saying the initiative was aimed at bridging the gap between healthcare costs and residents’ ability to pay.

He said the state had domesticated the National Health Insurance Authority Act, 2022, and made health insurance compulsory through an Executive Order signed in July 2024. The government was now preparing to formalise enforcement of the policy.

Abayomi said Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu was expected to announce the next steps within one or two weeks, while the Lagos State Health Management Agency (LASHMA) and the Ministry of Health were developing packages to accommodate different income groups.

He said the policy was critical because many residents struggled to afford increasingly expensive medical services.

“Bear in mind that most Lagosians, Nigerians, are on or just below the poverty line. So all this sophisticated infrastructure that we’re building, who’s going to pay for it?” he asked.

According to him, about 76 per cent of Lagos residents pay for healthcare out of pocket, while only about two per cent have health insurance, a situation the government hopes to reverse.

He warned that investment in hospitals, medical personnel, equipment and medicines would not be sustainable unless residents could afford the services provided.

“You can have a very sophisticated care delivery system, but if you cannot pay for that health, then that supply side will struggle and it may eventually go into economic hardship and collapse,” he said, linking the problem to the migration of medical professionals.

Abayomi said doctors were overworked, nurses overburdened and patient volumes high, while medicine and diagnostic costs continued to rise. Advances in treatment, including precision cancer drugs, robotics and remote interventions, were also making healthcare increasingly expensive.

He noted that Lagos and the Federal Government were investing in modern hospitals, private-sector partnerships and a new University of Medicine and Health Sciences. However, he stressed that infrastructure development must be matched by sustainable financing.

He said compulsory health insurance could strengthen the sector’s financial base and potentially inject trillions of naira into healthcare, helping sustain services and ease pressures contributing to the exodus of medical professionals.

The conference also examined opportunities to strengthen local healthcare delivery and address workforce shortages.

The Director of Smile Doctor Foundation and convener of the conference, Dr Funmilayo Adeniyi, said she became concerned about the shortage of health workers while expanding her dental practice, as competent professionals often left within two to six months to work abroad.

She said visits to universities to engage medical students revealed that many were already planning to leave Nigeria rather than build careers locally.

However, Adeniyi said the challenges presented opportunities for entrepreneurs and young medical professionals to develop affordable services for underserved populations.

“There is a large market for people going to the informal sector in search of care. If we package affordable solutions, people will pay for them,” she said, urging young doctors to collaborate and build sustainable healthcare businesses.

The Vice-Chancellor of the University of Lagos, Prof. Folasade Ogunsola, also urged young Nigerians to explore opportunities at home rather than regard relocation abroad as the only path to professional success.

She said the country’s challenges could create opportunities for innovation and investment, stressing that value creation was essential to building successful businesses.

Ogunsola added that better healthcare delivery required accountability and improved hospital standards. Poor patient relations, she said, could discourage people from seeking care at formal health facilities.

She called for standardised hospital management practices and enforceable standard operating procedures to improve service delivery and patient outcomes.