CRSHIA trains personnel ahead of PHCs Accreditation, Quality Assurance, others for AYADECARE Implementation

 

By Kingsley Agim

The Cross River State Health Insurance Agency (CRSHIA) has organized a one-day training/workshop for personnel as pre-activity of the Basic Health Care Provision Fund-National Health Insurance Gateway on Primary Health Centres accreditation, quality assurance, monitoring and evaluation and enrollment ahead of implementation of the State health insurance programme, otherwise known as AYADECARE.

The Director General of the Agency, Sir Godwin Iyala, in his opening remarks, recently at the workshop held in the Agency’s conference hall, said the activity is an initiative of his Agency as part of its obligations towards the implementation of Health Insurance in the State.

He further stated that the essence of the exercise was to expedite necessary action towards the implementation of Health Insurance Scheme for all in the State.

“The activity we are carrying out is dependent on the implementation of the BHCPF. This BHCPF is the Federal Government’s counterpart funding to assist the States provide access to care for the vulnerable population. The vulnerable population, in this context, are children under five years old, pregnant women and the aged,” the DG stated.

Sir Iyala also harped on the imperative of periodically checking on the facilities to ascertain the quality of services the scheme buys through their capitation, and ensure satisfaction of enrollees’ access to care and services meet international best practice.

The Health Insurance boss charged participants to carry out the assignment with the utmost commitment to succeed, if they wanted to be part of an important history of the State.

Also speaking, the Special Adviser to the Governor on Health, Dr. David Ushie described the exercise as “a multi-sectorial training for various stakeholders involving the Primary Healthcare Agency, Health Insurance Agency, Ministry of Health and the National Health Insurance Authority, as well as other major actors.

He said the exercise is to strengthen personnel in accessing the level of service uptake at the service providers end across the 18 Local Government Areas of the State.

He said participants were to be equipped with the nitty-gritty and philosophy behind monitoring and evaluation, quality assurance and patient’s Bill of Rights, which are the instruments regulating practice at the facility level.

Dr. hinted that with the concerted efforts of the Governor Ben Ayade-led administration and active stakeholders involvements, the State is on the verge of achieving Universal Health Coverage through the implementation of Health Insurance.

The training drew resource persons from the State Health Insurance Agency, National Health Insurance Authority, and Ministry of Health; and was supervised by the esteemed presence of the State Head of Service, Mr. Timothy Ogbang Akwaji, the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Health, Dr. Iwara Iwara, among other top related government officials.