The Chief of the Naval Staff (CNS) Vice Admiral Usman Jibrin has called on the Defence Health Maintenance Limited (DHML) to extend health insurance coverage to retired military personnel and their families in line with the Armed Forces Harmonized Terms and Conditions of service.
Admiral Jibrin stated this when he received the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer (MD/CEO) of DHML, Retired Surgeon Commodore Ahmed Abdullai at the Naval Headquarters, Abuja on Thursday, 28 August 2014. He said that military retirees should be supported to access free Medicare to serve as incentive to serving personnel.
The CNS called on the organisation to synergize with the benefiting services to develop effective Research and Development to advance the frontiers of medicare in the Armed Forces in particular and the nation in general. He reiterated the continuous support of the Nigerian Navy to the organisation in its efforts to provide comprehensive health insurance services to serving and retired military personnel.
In his remarks, the MD/CEO of the DHML, Retired Surgeon Commodore Ahmed Abdullai thanked the Nigerian Navy for its support to the organisation from cradle and pledged to live up to its mandate. He assured the CNS that very soon veterans across the country would begin to access free medicare as plans were on top gear in that direction. According to him, caring for retirees was an incentive to serving personnel as it would spur them to be more loyal and patriotic to the country.
On research and development, Surgeon Commodore Abdullai revealed that the organisation plans to establish a Veterans Hospital in Abuja that would provide research base for infectious and non-communicable diseases.
