78% Nigerians willing to pay for health insurance, 22% aren’t – NOI Polls
Universal health care, sometimes referred to as universal health coverage or universal care, usually refers to a health care system that provides health care and financial protection to all citizens of a particular country.
It is organized around providing a specified package of benefits to all members of a society with the end goal of providing financial risk protection, improved access to health services, and improved health outcomes.
It is described by the World Health Organization as a situation where citizens can access health services without incurring financial hardship.
The question therefore as asked by NOI Polls, which served as the basis for their survey is “Is Health coverage for all Nigerians a myth or a possibility?’
In April 2001, heads of state of African Union countries met and pledged to set a target of allocating at least 15% of their annual budget to improve the health sector.
At the same time, they urged donor countries to “fulfil the yet to be met target of 0.7% of their GNP as official Development Assistance (ODA) to developing countries”. This drew attention to the shortage of resources necessary to improve health in low income settings.
Over a decade later, 16 years in 2017, Nigeria is still lagging in terms of the 15% allocation of its annual budget to health.
NOIPolls Limited is the No1 for country specific polling services in West Africa and they conduct periodic opinion polls and studies on various socio-economic and political issues in Nigeria.
The opinion poll by NOI asking “Is Health coverage for all Nigerians a myth or a possibility?”, was conducted in the week of August 1st, 2017 and it involved telephone interviews of a random nationwide sample.
1,000 randomly selected phone-owning Nigerians aged 18 years and above, representing the six geopolitical zones in the country, were interviewed.
With a sample of this size, NOI Polls stated categorically that they can say with 95% confidence that the results obtained are statistically precise – within a range of plus or minus 3%.
Questions asked and results shown includes firstly, “which healthcare facility do you or your family members visit when ill?”, 63% said government hospitals, 39% said private hospitals, 17% said Pharmacy/Chemist, 13% said self medication and 2% said traditional practitioners.
Secondly, they were asked how they paid for healthcare and the result showed that 82% was from out of pocket, 9% health insurance, 7% support from friends and family and 2% said “I don’t pay, I get free healthcare”
Thirdly, they were asked if they would be willing to pay a certain amount monthly or yearly to health insurance to enable access of healthcare when ill, 78% said yes and 22% said no.
WHO estimates that if all the Official Development Assistance (ODA) that donors report they are disbursing for health and population activities actually arrived in the recipient countries for them to spend according to their priorities, when it is added to the existing levels of government spending, almost US$ 61 per capita would be available. This is near to the estimate that the High Level Task Force estimated was required to reach the MDGs in the world’s poorest countries, Nigeria inclusive.
Kemi Ajumobi