Kick out Malaria: Expert charges Gov't to Adopt aggressive health education strategies to tackle the menace

Kick out Malaria: Expert charges Gov’t to Adopt aggressive health education strategies to tackle the menace

A medical expert, Dr Patrick Korie, has urged the three tiers of government to adopt aggressive health education strategies to reduce the incidence of malaria and other preventable diseases.

Korie, the Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, SUNU Health Nigeria Ltd., made the plea on Thursday at the inaugural Enrollees/Providers Forum for the South-West zone.

According to him, a review of 2018 diagnosis and treatment of our enrollees showed that malaria is about 53 per cent of all the diagnosis and treatment.

“Nigeria is a malaria endemic zone with malaria as one of the highest causes of mortality and sick leave absenteeism.

“This is of great concern to us; we would like to change the narrative with our enrollees.

“First, we must set up a standard for the treatment of malaria for our enrollees. Our standard is the WHO standard.

“Part of the guideline is test before treatment and the use of ACT. This we would like to encourage our providers to do,’’ Korie said.

The SUNU chief executive said that in the organisation’s interaction with some providers on the guideline of protesting before treatment and the use of ACT, they drawn their attention to the cost of treatment for malaria.

“This is paid for through capitation in the NHIS, except complicated malaria that may be secondary case.

“Malaria is a preventive disease and we know that prevention is better than cure. We strongly advocate preventive measures and education of all patients diagnosed with malaria.

“If the patients are aware and adopt preventive measures, the cost associated with the cure of malaria would be saved by the provider.

“Health education is a risk management technique that should be adopted by all our providers to reduce incidence of diseases and reduce the cost of cure.

“Preventive healthcare is an integral part of our healthcare delivery system,’’ Korie said.

Also, Dr Bethel-Kasim Abraham, an Assistant General Manager, National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), said that the scheme focussed and placed special attention on the enrollees.

Abraham said that the whole scheme centres on the enrollees, as they need to get value for the contributions they brought into the system.

He said some ailments had not yet been covered under the scheme, because money that was supposed to be used to treat millions of people could not be used to treat few people.

Abraham said NHIS would still look into cases like cancer, noting that the scheme had covered dialysis to a maximum of six sessions and surgeries.

Source: NAN

Photo Credit: Google