By Kateng Daniel, Jos
The Director General, Plateau State Contributory Healthcare Management Agency (PLASCHEMA), Dr. Fabong Jemchang has said the agency was established to provide access and affordable healthcare services to Plateau people.
He noted that Governor Simon Lalong also initiated the agency to enable Plateau State achieve universal health coverage.
Dr. Jemchang disclosed this on Tuesday in Jos, Plateau State.
“The sole aim of the agency is to ensure that individuals gain access to affordable, equitable, timely and quality healthcare with financial security for all residents of Plateau state irrespective of their socioeconomic status.
“It is saddled with the responsibility of ensuring that all people have access to needed promotive, preventive, curative and rehabilitation services of sufficient quality, while ensuring that people do not suffer financial hardship when paying for services.”
He explained that the agency has developed various programmes to cover different segments of the society; which includes Plateau State equity health plan consisting of children, pregnant women, elderly, greater than 60 years.
He noted that the formal health plan consisting of uniform men and public sector employees while there is informal health plan and private health plan.
“The equity healthcare plan has enrolled 34,294 people, the formal healthcare plan with 11,031 principals, 28,597 dependents, and informal healthcare plan with 27 Pharmacies, 5 laboratories, 1 optometry general and cottage hospitals, with 3 tertiary institutions”.
Dr. Jemchang explained that the level of accessibility to this healthcare includes the primary healthcare services which is at the point of entry; the secondary which takes referrals from primary and the tertiary which takes care of all the referrals from primary and secondary.
He said, “the principal enrollee and his spouse with children below the age of eighteen years can have access to the healthcare services”.
He said the scope of coverage includes all students in tertiary institutions, all retirees, all pupils of public and private primary schools, all informal sector who enrolled and all voluntary contributors.
“The agency is poised to strengthen health financing by pooling resources and through strategic purchasing, mitigate high out of pocket expenditure.”
He stressed that PLASCHEMA has the lowest deduction rates compared to other schemes in the country, saying Plateau state have demonstrated massive will for it.
