Nigerian Women get Opportunity of a Lifetime: Free Health Insurance
Nigerian Women get Opportunity of a Lifetime: Free Health Insurance
A new healthcare initiative designed to promote the empowerment of Nigerian women has already successfully granted free healthcare to at least 50 women in the Niger Delta area, news reports show.
Free Health Insurancefor Women in Nigeria
Solomon Eke, Deputy Chairman of Obio/Akpor Local Government Area of Rivers State, helped announce the success of the program appropriately titled Healthcare and Women Empowerment Schem this past weekend in Rumurolu, Rivers.
Image from NNFR
The program was specifically created in an effort to tackle at least one of the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDG) crafted by the United Nations in 2000—aiding women in need.
Other MDG’s include finding a solution to poverty, curing AIDS, and promoting sustainability, just to name a few.
Under the healthcare program, a select number of women registered with the Obio Cottage Hospital received individual grants of N7,500 each which enabled them to have free healthcare for at least a year. This will help cover but is not limited to routine office visits for check ups and provision drug counselling for expecting mothers.
“The idea is that when [women] are sick, they know where to go,” Eke said at a press conference. “We are taking advantage of an arrangement we have with SPDC to impact positively on our people. The company has invested in the hospital, so there are facilities there.”
The program also allows those who qualify the opportunity to inquire an interest-free loan no greater than N300,000. It’s ideally designed for business savvy women in need of a little assistance to help their entrepreneurial endeavour gain some steam, but government leaders suggest that they are working to extend the interest-free loans to other communities in the future.
“As community women, they contribute money to help themselves before now. So to energise them I decided to put N300, 000 in their purse so that if any member is in difficulty, she can go there and collect a loan that is interest-free,” Eke said.
Hopefully this initiative is just the budding beginnings of something much greater that will happen in the future.
According to statistics, Nigeria only dedicates about 6.5% of its budget to healthcare reforms a year, yet morality rates in the country— especially with pregnant women who still have a 1-in-18 chance of dying during birth or pregnancy related causes— are still too high.
Susan Wells is a contributor to Insurance Quotes, a service that helps provide health, business, and car insurance news and advice to consumers. You can drop your comments and questions below to connect with Susan.
NG Newspapers Free Email Subscription
Category: Health News in Nigeria
About the Author (Author Profile)
Isaac Success Olaoye is a Webmaster and a Blogger who lives in Lagos. He is a Guest / Co-author on Many Blogs within His Niche.Subscribe
If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to receive more just like it.
