Niger State Ministry of Information and Strategy has pledged its continuous support by creating awareness among Nigerlites of the services and activities of the Niger State Contributory Health Scheme, NiCare, through wider publicity.
The Commissioner of Information and Strategy, Hon. Binta Mamman, gave this assurance in her goodwill message at a one-day validation, dissemination, stakeholder, and partner meeting of the agency's four-year strategic plan, held at the Guddel Hotel Minna.
Hon. Mamman said her ministry, which is one of the key partners of the agency and most especially the mouthpiece of the government that is saddled with the sole responsibility of publicising and creating awareness of government activities and programmes through the dissemination of information, will do everything possible to extend the same gestures to NiCare to enable it to succeed in providing quality healthcare services to all residents of the state.
The commissioner commended the management team of NiCare, led by its Executive Secretary and Chief Executive Officer Sulayman Abu Bakr, for bringing together development partners and stakeholders to the agency's validation four-year strategic plan and dissemination meeting, with the view of rubbing minds and devising a plan on how to position the agency as the leading institution driving the attainment of universal health coverage across the state and improving livelihoods for the residents of the state.
Hon. Binta Mamman, disclosed that the ministry, under her leadership, will make use of its various media outfits to feature the activities of the agency through radio phone participatory programmes, documentary and news dissemination, to create awareness among the residents of the state of the existence of NiCare, to enable people to be aware of the importance of the scheme benefits, and to enable them to key into the programme for their own benefit.
Speaking in a keynote address, the Commissioner for Secondary and Tertiary Health, Dr. Bello Tukur, applauded the Niger State Agency for organising the meeting for stakeholders and development partners, which afforded the participants the opportunity to brainstorm on the strategic action plan.
The commissioner told the gathering that NiCare, whose mandate was to ensure that all residents of the state have good access to quality health services, disclosed that the agency had developed a three-year working collaboration with the Ministry of Primary Healthcare to strengthen health facilities in the state, with an increase from 274 to 278.
Dr. Tukur stated further that the ministry has also expanded primary healthcare to rural hospitals in the state with Paikoro, Katcha, and Agwara, amongst others, pointing out that the ministry has received approval of N6 billion from the governor in this year's budget for the supply of medical equipment, while upgrading more was in the pipeline, and appealing to the ministry of information to rally around NiCare to sensitise Nigerlites on its activities to enable it to succeed in executing its mandate of providing quality healthcare services to all residents of the state.
In his opening remarks, the Executive Secretary and Chief Executive Officer of NiCare, Sulayman Abu Bakr, described the meeting organised for development partners and stakeholders as historic, as it was the first of its kind in the history of NiCare.
The executive secretary said that the agency was embarking on a transformative journey towards achieving universal health coverage in the state with a clear vision to position NiCare as the vanguard institution enhancing the livelihoods of residents of the state, all in alignment with the New Niger al-Agenda of Governor Mohammed Umaru Bago.
According to him, the agency remained committed to its four-year agenda, which he outlined to strengthen NiCare as an institution, embark on a journey of rebranding corporate communication to amplify visibility into the noble work, have an ambitious goal of driving health insurance coverage up to 15 percent by 2027, and recognise the indispensable role of digitalization in revolutionising the health insurance system.
He said that the agency alone cannot achieve all that is needed without the support of partners and collaboration and called for teamwork from all the stakeholders to rally around the agency for it to achieve its vision and objectives of providing quality health services for the people of the state.