Low income earners in the country may soon have access to healthcare loan at a very low interest rate if the Federal Executive Council approves a proposal that will be presented before it.
Should the proposal be ratified, the Federal Government will make the loan available to interested Nigerians through commercial banks to access the National Health Insurance Scheme.
Disclosing this to newsmen in Abuja on Wednesday was the acting Executive Secretary of NHIS, Dr. Abdulrahman Sambo, while receiving the report on Hospital Capital Improvement Project.
According to Sambo, the committee, among other things, was asked to put in place modalities for the establishment of hospital capital improvement fund and the feasibility of interest rate.
Sambo noted that the committee was charged to “critically examine whether the program is feasible and practicable at an interest rate that is fair to all the health seekers, as government was looking into investing and injecting funds into the scheme to meet the needs of Nigerians on universal healthcare coverage.”
While stressing government’s commitment to the provision of low-interest loans, the acting NHIS boss said the target was to find alternative ways to funding the NHIS so as to make healthcare affordable to all.
Explaining how the plan will work, Sambo said the Federal Government will provide the loans, while the disbursement to intended healthcare seekers will be carried out by banks after scaling the pre-qualify criteria.
The Chairman of the committee, Dr. Godfrey Achilihu, said the report dwells on the need for government to properly finance healthcare delivery and to make it accessible to all.
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