NHIS undergoing reforms to fast track attainment of universal health coverage
There are indications that the ongoing Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic and the non-passage of the amended National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) Act have further slowed down the uptake of health insurance packages and Universal Health Coverage (UHC) in the country.
In fact, The Guardian investigation revealed that more than 170 million Nigerians are still paying out-of-pocket to access medical services and out-of-pocket payments can make households and individuals incur catastrophic health expenditure and this can exacerbate the level of poverty. x
Critics say the NHIS has remained nonfunctional and the coverage rate has dropped from over 10 per cent (5.6 million Nigerians) ten years ago to just barely 1.72 per cent (one million Nigerians) today.
Vaughan Gething: âSome government colleagues ask me: how do you do that job? Itâs awful.â Photograph: Matthew Horwood/Getty Images
In the past year, Vaughan Gething has become one of the most recognisable politicians in the UK. The job of Welsh health minister did not used to attract much UK-wide attention. But as a result of Covid, and the focus that has placed on the devolved nations, it does now.
âSome government colleagues ask me: âHow do you do that job? Itâs awful.â Of course itâs difficult, but you make a difference and you meet remarkable people who benefit from the health service and remarkable people who deliver it.â
Newsmen report that other demands by the NLC and TUC are payment of leave grants to civil servants on grade level 07 to 16 in 2019, payment of leave grants of the year 2020, remittance of teachers pension contributions to Pension Funds Administrators, PFA and payment of gratuity to pensioners from 2017 to October 2018 as well as payment of new retirees from November 2018 to 2019.
Ibrahim Shuaibu in Kano
Governor Abdullahi Ganduje of Kano State has reverted to the former minimum wage of N18,000 for its workers.
In an interview yesterday, spokesperson to the governor, Salihu Tanko-Yakasai, said the state government has also stopped the payment of N30,000 minimum wage to its workers.
Tanko-Yakasai said the reason for the action is due to the recession caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
He added that the state is unable to continue paying N30,000 because what the state is getting now as a government has reduced.
“The state government has reverted to the initial minimum pay due to the recession. What we are getting now as a government has reduced, and we can’t afford to pay the N30,000 minimum wage,” he told reporters.
The rupture between Margaret Thatcher and Jacques Delors lives on in Brexit The 1988 split between prime minister and European Commission president explains where Brexit came from - and where it might go Mathieu Polak/Sygma/Sygma via Getty Images
President of the European Committee Jacques Delors and Margaret Thatcher at the opening of the Channel Tunnel in 1994 When historians look back at 11pm on 31 December 2020, when Brexit took effect, who will they say had set Britain and the EU on the path that led there? David Cameron and Boris Johnson? Jean-Claude Juncker? Angela Merkel? Tony Blair? I suspect that, more than any of these figures, the two names with which any