LAGOS
The Lagos State government has enrolled 570 beneficiaries of its Mother, Infant and Child Development (MICHD) programme into its Health Insurance Scheme.
The enrollment was announced through the Office of Civic Engagement and Lagos State Health Management Agency (LASHMA) at the Partners Engagement Forum on MICHD.
Speaking at the event, the special adviser to the governor on Civic Engagement, Princess Aderemi Adebowale, stated that the enrolment of the beneficiaries is a major component of the MICHD programme.
Launched by Governor Babajide Olusola Sanwo-Olu on September 22, 2021, MICHD is a component of the ‘Womb to School Initiative,’ a preparedness preventive rather than curative security measure geared towards making Lagos safer by projected year 2050.
According to Adebowale, it is a strategy to build on the support given to the women while they were pregnant as well as sustain their access to affordable and qualitative healthcare services after delivery.
Her words: “The Office of Civic Engagement understands that to create a peaceful and safe environment where the government can function optimally, citizens from conception to birth and through adolescence to adulthood must be given a fair chance to live, grow and become responsible individuals who are less likely to exert social pressure on the system.
“Today’s engagement forum avails us the opportunity to meet with the 570 beneficiaries and their babies delivered during the research phase as they would be enrolled into the Lagos State Health Insurance Scheme “ILERA EKO”, the enrollment of these babies on the insurance scheme is to ensure the mothers and their babies remains healthy. I sincerely welcome them on board.
“As all is set for the roll-out for the significant Launch Phase of this audacious programme, this forum is therefore a bold attempt to chart a veritable course of decisive actions that will make the phase a resounding success and sustainable.”
Adebowale said the engagement forum also provides opportunities for partners from the public and private sectors to meet with 570 beneficiaries of the programme.
Commissioner for health, Professor Akin Abayomi, represented by Dr. Olamide Okulaja, said the MICHD Programme is part of the plan to ensure that the Lagos State Government can fulfilcritical clauses in its social contract with people, through a single initiative, by following them from infancy to childhood and to adolescence.
“For civic engagement to be robust, it must first acknowledge the social contract between the government and its people. The social contract is a voluntary agreement among individuals by which organised society is brought into being and invested with the right to secure mutual protection and welfare of the citizens. The boundaries of civic engagement must become enlarged to encompass the critical elements of health, security and economy as these are the core responsibilities of any government.
“This initiative can ensure balanced citizens, who are productive members of the society, improve human capital development and cause us all to thrive economically in a safe and secure environment”.
The general manager of LASHMA, Dr. Emmanuela Zamba, assured that the agency saddled with the responsibility of implementing the State’s Health Insurance Scheme, will continue to collaborate with other stakeholders in the implementation of the programme in fulfilment of its core mandate of providing access to quality and affordable healthcare for Lagosians.
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