NHIS partners governors, traditional rulers to improve, extend healthcare

By Ajuma Edwina Ogiri
Abuja

The Executive Secretary, National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), Prof. Usman Yusuf has urged governors of the 36 states of the federation, traditional rulers and stakeholders to adopt the scheme in order to achieve universal health coverage in Nigeria.
Prof. Yusuf, who made the call at a media chat with journalist in Abuja, said that the aim of the partnership between the NHIS, state governors, traditional rulers and stakeholders was to extend healthcare to most Nigerians and also create strategies to improve health care financing across the states.
He said majority of Nigerians live in the states, towns and villages and the scheme covers just a little fraction of the population; essentially federal government workers, adding that the partnership would create a platform for governors, traditional rulers and stakeholders to formulate policies that would be implementable for the various states.
He said: “The reason I seek these people’s support is because NHIS as it is structured now, caters essentially for federal government workers.
“Majority of our people live in the states, in the towns, in the villages. We need to find out how we can extend this coverage to them. Essentially NHIS facilitates the Sick person access to health care facilities.
“Special attention would be accorded to supporting the poor and the vulnerable in the informal sector to be able to access efficient healthcare without financial constraints.”
Prof. Yusuf also added that the primary goal of the agency was to increase healthcare coverage for all Nigerians, especially the vulnerable, children under five, the disabled, prisoners, the aged among others.
He further stated that his presidential mandate was to make NHIS work for all Nigerians, cleanse the scheme of inefficiency, corruption, impunity and political patronage.
He promised to empower the enrollees to have access to their HMOs, and give them the opportunity to decide which hospital they want to subscribe to.
Crying is good for health – Expert says
Dr Uthman Mubashir, Public Health Physician of the University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital, has said that emotional tears have special health benefits for people.
Mubashir told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in an interview in Ilorin that crying had “therapeutic emotional freedom”.
“Tears are protective and they lubricate your eyes, remove irritants, reduce stress hormones, and they contain antibodies that fight pathogenic microbes,” he said.
He explained that tears might decrease arousal of distress and make people feel better.
According to him, reflex tears are 98 per cent water, whereas emotional tears also contain stress hormones which get excreted from the body through crying.
Mubashir said that emotional tears shed these hormones and other toxins which accumulate during stress.
The public health physician, who teaches at the College of Health Sciences of the University of Ilorin, noted that crying stimulates the production of endorphins, “our body’s natural pain killer and feel-good hormones”.
“Crying makes us feel better, even when a problem persists. In addition to physical detoxification, emotional tears heal the heart,” he said.
Mubashir warned against dissuading people from holding back tears, saying that holding back tears was a form of bottling up emotions that could trigger stress and other problems.
“We are in a society that tells us we’re weak for crying, in particular that powerful men don’t cry.
“The new enlightened paradigm of what constitutes a powerful man and woman is someone who has the strength and self-awareness to cry,” he said.
He reiterate that “it is good to cry, it is healthy to cry. This helps to emotionally clear sadness and stress.”
Crying, he pointed out, was also essential to resolve grief when some someone lost a dear one.
“Tears help us process the loss so we can keep living with open hearts. Otherwise, we will be depressed if we suppress these potent feelings.”  (NAN)