Alhaji Abdulganiyu Onimajise, the Coordinator, National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), on Thursday, announced that the Health Scheme for Public Primary Schools would commence by the end of November.

He explained that "the Public Primary School Health Scheme is expected to be a nationwide exercise; all necessary arrangements have been finalised to commence by the end of this month in Kwara."

According to him, the scheme will attend to pupils in public schools? as part of Federal Government's plan to capture the entire public into insurance policies, most especially pregnant women and children under the age of five years.

Onimajise said the educational insurance scheme which started with tertiary institutions was now targeted at pupils in primary schools.

On the level of synergy with state insurance, he lamented over the ineffectiveness of the programme, adding that efforts were being put for better coordination.

He added that the management of NHIS had discovered that the rate of penetration into states had not been substantial and decided that states should be involved in the implementation of health insurance.

He noted that the scheme introduced a social insurance programme which would jointly be funded by the federal and the state governments. ?

"We want the states to amend the laws setting up the community insurance so that it can be state health insurance programme with an agency to manage it.

"Once that is done in-line with National Health Acts, there is going to be funds that will be paid by NHIS to the state agencies to cater for the vulnerable group," he said.

Onimajise said that the ultimate was to cover residents in every nook and cranny of the state.

He disclosed that a board would be constituted with all stakeholder representatives to monitor the transparency level of the programme. (NAN)