Nigeria’s National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) has confirmed it has been directed by Nigeria’s president, Muhammadu Buhari, to enlist corps members in the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS). According to the NYSC leadership, arrangement has been concluded to implement the presidential directive.
“Furthermore, the scheme has concluded arrangement with the NHIS for the enrolment of corps members into the NHIS in line with a presidential directive. We have also expended huge resources on critical health needs of corps members, including footing of medical bills,” said Director-General of NYSC, Shuaibu Ibrahim.
Experts described the presidential directive as geared towards improving and expanding public adoption of health insurance in Nigeria which has been unable to attract impressive and extensive voluntary interest among the general public.
The significant proportion of enrolees under the NHIS scheme in Nigeria has been workers in the public service sector who were compulsorily signed up for the scheme by the government and dues being deducted monthly from their salaries.
For the NYSC corps members, this implies that they would be automatically registered under NHIS while the management of the organisation will work out modalities with the NHIS on how dues will be paid, if the corps members will be required to pay.
In a related development, NYSC has also expressed its readiness to resume activities at its orientation camps. To achieve this safely in the light of the COVID-19 pandemic, NYSC is working with the Nigeria Center for Disease Control (NCDC).
“They will all participate in the Orientation exercise, which has been planned to take place in three streams for ease of compliance with the COVlD-19 protocols,” Ibrahim said. Following the ease of the COVlD-19 lockdown and the green light from the Presidential Task Force for NYSC to make preparations for safe resumption of our Orientation Course, the Scheme has been working in liaison with the NCDC to achieve the desired outcomes,” he added.