Lagos to reduce premature deaths through mental health promotion

• Why health insurance is not working in Nigeria, by HCPAN

Lagos State Government has disclosed a plan to reduce by one-third premature deaths in the state through prevention, treatment and promotion of mental health and well-being.

Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, while speaking, yesterday, at the Lagos Mental Health Conference, organised by the Lagos State Ministry of Health, said the state has set the groundwork for the development of sustainable mental health care programmes and services to ensure improved health outcomes.

The governor, who was represented by his Deputy, Dr. Kadri Obafemi Hamzat, noted that implementation of the groundwork will enable Lagos to become one of the forerunners in the delivery of sustainable, efficient and effective mental health services in Nigeria, and Africa.

He said: “Mental Health is one of those issues in our society that is still very largely misunderstood and which conversations still happen in secret. This is despite the fact that we all know someone who is struggling with one form of mental health challenge or the other, like depression, anxiety, substance abuse and those we have lost to suicide.

MEANWHILE, Health Care Providers Association of Nigeria (HCPAN) has given reasons the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) is not functioning optimally in the country.

It said in a statement that since the beginning of private health insurance, private health care provider facilities have remained the heaviest cross-bearers across the country.

HCPAN said health care financing uses out-of-pocket means of payment, which has become a serious injury to the average Nigerian family. It also noted that about 76.6 per cent of total health care financing remains out-of-pocket payment in Nigeria.

The association said actuary valuation and determinations seem faulty and unacceptable as appreciate pricing tools for health care services. It is, therefore, not a tool of voluntary and trusted subscription by health care providers in the majority, and more especially the private health sector.

It said: “Some Health Maintenance Organisations (HMOs) that are becoming insolvent are giving out their outfits to bidders and fresh undertakers (buyers) who were not thoroughly in the true picture of correct status of assets and liabilities of what they came to acquire.

“The consequences are to the extent that what the new management team has come to inherit cannot really stand the test of time, economically, to break even. As they service the liabilities, what is left does not appear reasonable on a monthly basis to meet the settlement and reimbursement of the services rendered by providers.”