NHIA enrollees decry poor medical services in MAUTH Yola
Story from Usman IBRAHIM, Yola
The National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) enrollees in Adamawa have decried poor service delivery to the scheme’s participants by Modibbo Adama University Teaching Hospital (MAUTH) Yola.
Some of the enrollees who spoke during a stakeholders meeting organised by NHIA in Yola, singled out MAUTH for their poor treatment of enrollees.
Mr Dimas Bille, the Public Relations Officer, Nigeria Security and Civil Corps (NSCDC), Adamawa command, said negligence on the part of MAUTH during emergencies had resulted to the loss of lives of their personnel.
According to him, there were times they went with sick personnel to MAUTH by midnight but were not attended to until 6 a.m and at the end the patient died.
Mrs Msursluma Apir, a Deputy Director, National Orientation Agency, also complained about the hospital over its additional charges, reports of “out of stock medicines”, and delay in attending patients.
Mr Aliyu Abdul-Hakeem, the NHIA Coordinator in Adamawa, while addressing the complainants acknowledged that daily they received series of complaints over their service from enrollees.
He said that the management had constituted a powerful committee to address the complaints raised by enrollees.
“For almost one year and half they have not been buying drugs for our enrollees and we are having challenges on this issue.
“But we don’t owe them capitation and so they have no reason for not buying drugs for our enrollees,” he said.
Mr Isiyaku Yakuma, MAUTH’s NHIA Desk Officer, denied some of the allegations, saying that some of the challenges are caused by Health Management Organisations (HMOs) who delay providing authorisation code numbers for secondary service.
He also said that the HMOs owed the hospital a debt of about N157 million from 2021 to date.
Yakuma regretted that the enrollees were always complaining only of what the hospital did wrongly, while forgetting to commend it for what it did rightly.
