Free Healthcare Services: Yobe Targets 70,000 People  

On Friday, the Yobe Government revealed that it is targeting 70,000 people in 2022 under its Expanded Free Healthcare Service Scheme, which aims at harmonising free healthcare programmes, including the Basic Health Care Provision Fund (BHCPF), Free Drugs Programme and Equity Sector.

 Dr Mohammad Gana, the Commissioner for Health, revealed this while speaking with journalists in Damaturu on the sideline of an orientation exercise for service providers, saying that about 50,000 poor and vulnerable persons were so far benefiting from all the programmes at primary, secondary and tertiary healthcare centres in the state.

He explained that “the expanded scheme is essentially about bringing all our free healthcare services under one umbrella.

“We are doing this to avoid duplication, waste of resources, and also ensuring that the right population are benefitting from the right programmes.”

Gana also said that “the state government pays 3.25 per cent of the medical bills of every civil servant under its Formal Sector Contributory Programme which started in 2020.”

He also said the state is trying its best in monitoring and evaluating complaints about not receiving some consumable items.

“And this is as a result of inflation and the rising cost of the dollar, which, of course, affects the drugs market. For instance, the intravenous fluid that we used to buy between N50 and N60 in 2014, now costs over N300.

“However, we are doing our best to improve the system; that is why monitoring and evaluation is an integral component of the scheme,” the commissioner said.