By Henry Uche
The Lagos State Joint Public Service Negotiating Council -Trade Union Side (JPSNC) has charged the Lagos State Health Management Agency (LASHMA) to improve on workers’ health insurance scheme in the state and ensure that it does not renege from its promises and the mandate establishng it.
Speaking in Lagos at a joint session on health insurance awareness campaign, with the theme: Talk The Work And Work The Talk, the chairman of the council, Olusegun Rhamom Balogun, alerted LASHMA that productivity anywhere is a function of sound minds, body and soul.
According to him, LASHMA must Prioritize and foster an inclusive health system for every worker and their families, saying that, health care remains their right and not a privilege. His words: “Our objecting as the leader of workers is to see that every worker in the Public Service have unrestricted access to health care they deserve regardless of their income. All we want is a system that works for everybody and not some selected few,”
Balogun stressed that LASHMA was established to ensure that workers along with our members have easy access to affordable and quality care services as a way of promoting a workforce that is physically, mentally and psychologically fit to discharge their duties.
He implored its members and LASHMA to strive to educate members against the dogma and cynicism about insurance in Nigeria, if all workers in the Public Service must enjoy the numerous benefits the health insurance provides. “By collaborating, both parties must always come up with better strategies of improving the operations of the Scheme for the benefit of our members, if we must achieve the Universal Health Coverage,” he asserted
Reacting, the Chairman of LASHMA, Adetokunbo Alakija, affirmed that the Agency had taken actionable steps to bring the state closer to Universal Health Coverage since the beginning of its plan, which includes the payment of 75% of health insurance premiums for public servants in the state and creating the state equity fund, which is 1% of the state’s consolidated revenue fund, used to pay premiums for poor and vulnerable residents in the state.