- Enrolled patients will benefit from free surgical procedures
The Ogun State Government announced that 70,000 individuals will receive complimentary healthcare for a year through its health insurance initiative.
Dr. Afolabi Dosunmu, the Executive Secretary of the Ogun State Health Insurance Agency, shared this information with journalists in Abeokuta on Saturday.
Besides paying their premiums, enrolled patients will benefit from free surgical procedures, as announced by Governor Dapo Abiodun in January. Dr. Dosunmu revealed that over 1000 surgeries have been conducted since March began, with a higher-than-anticipated number of patients seeking screenings at the facilities.
Some patients unable to undergo immediate surgery were referred to a higher level of care for later procedures due to various reasons.
“The governor had instructed us to enroll 70,000 people for free medical care but he insisted that we gather people that need one surgical intervention or the other and that was how we started that journey.
“Of course, there’s a process; when you get there, they enroll you on insurance; you see a doctor who screens you and look at if that surgery can be done now or later. There are some people with high blood pressure, some with high blood sugar and other conditions and of course we can’t do surgeries for those ones but they’ll get it done at a later date because they already have our card,” he said.
Mr Dosunmu, however, lamented that many prospective or referred patients refused to collect their insurance, which is their guarantee for free medical and surgical services.
He urged patients that registered and were screened but given later dates for their surgeries, to visit the facility to collect their cards.