By Our Correspondent<\/p>\n
The Federal Government has approved health insurance coverage for about 90,000 inmates in correctional facilities as part of efforts to expand access to essential healthcare and protect vulnerable Nigerians from unaffordable medical expenses.<\/p>\n
The Minister of State for Health and Social Welfare, Dr. Iziaq Adekunle Salako, disclosed this on Wednesday in Abuja during a ministerial briefing on three years of implementation and reforms under the Basic Health Care Provision Fund (BHCPF).<\/p>\n
Salako said the approval formed part of broader government efforts to strengthen primary healthcare delivery, expand health insurance coverage and improve access to essential medical services for underserved populations.<\/p>\n
He explained that the BHCPF had become a major instrument for financing primary healthcare and implementing the Nigeria Health Sector Renewal Investment Initiative launched by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in December 2023.<\/p>\n
According to him, national health insurance enrolment increased from approximately 16.2 million people in 2023 to 23.06 million by the third quarter of 2026.<\/p>\n
He added that the BHCPF had supported health insurance coverage for 3,182,943 vulnerable Nigerians with National Identification Numbers.<\/p>\n
The Fund had also supported free vesicovaginal fistula surgeries and rehabilitation, emergency caesarean sections and other emergency obstetric and newborn care interventions benefiting 96,068 women and babies.<\/p>\n
Salako said the Federal Government was working to extend the reach of the Fund through improved financing mechanisms, stronger accountability and expanded coverage of healthcare facilities.<\/p>\n
He disclosed that the government had disbursed \u20a6249.6 billion to the BHCPF over the past three years, representing 77.1 per cent of the \u20a6323.6 billion disbursed since the Fund was established in 2019.<\/p>\n
Total releases to the Fund stood at \u20a6422.3 billion as of September 2026, while cumulative disbursements were expected to rise to \u20a6364.3 billion following the approval of an additional \u20a640.76 billion by the Ministerial Oversight Committee on October 14.<\/p>\n
The minister said the latest allocation would support health insurance, primary healthcare services, emergency medical treatment and disease surveillance through the four gateways of the Fund.<\/p>\n
Of the approved amount, \u20a619.87 billion was allocated to the National Health Insurance Authority, \u20a618.34 billion to the National Primary Health Care Development Agency, \u20a62.04 billion to emergency medical treatment and \u20a6509.48 million to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention.<\/p>\n
At the primary healthcare level, Salako said 8,309 facilities were currently receiving direct facility financing across the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory.<\/p>\n
The government plans to extend support to an additional 5,212 facilities, bringing the projected number to 13,521, while its broader reform agenda targets direct financing for at least 17,600 facilities.<\/p>\n
He added that the number of primary healthcare facilities attaining Level 2 readiness rose from 1,748 in 2024 to 3,202 in the third quarter of 2026.<\/p>\n
General attendance at primary healthcare facilities also increased from a baseline of 34.55 million in 2023 to 43.06 million by the second quarter of 2026, according to figures presented at the briefing.<\/p>\n
On emergency medical services, Salako disclosed that the system had recorded 168,571 ambulance service episodes since 2023, covering obstetric emergencies, neonatal and under-five emergencies, road traffic injuries, snakebites, burns and other urgent medical conditions.<\/p>\n
He said rural emergency transport services had been established in 171 of the 172 local government areas covered by the Maternal and Newborn Mortality Reduction Innovation Initiative, with plans to expand to 200 local government areas by December 2026.<\/p>\n
The minister also disclosed that the government was working with the National Assembly to increase the BHCPF\u2019s statutory allocation from one per cent to two per cent of the Consolidated Revenue Fund.<\/p>\n
Salako urged state governments to meet their counterpart financing obligations and strengthen oversight to ensure that funds released for primary healthcare translate into services for patients.<\/p>\n
He stressed that the success of the BHCPF would ultimately depend on its impact on vulnerable households, pregnant women, children and communities with limited access to essential healthcare.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Our Correspondent The Federal Government has approved health insurance coverage for about 90,000 inmates in correctional facilities as part of efforts to expand access to essential healthcare and protect vulnerable Nigerians from unaffordable medical expenses. The Minister of State for Health and Social Welfare, Dr. Iziaq Adekunle Salako, disclosed this on Wednesday in Abuja […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19180,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19178"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19178\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19179,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19178\/revisions\/19179"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}