In the business of governance, there are a few sectors that Bayelsa State prides itself as being among the best in the country. One of such sectors is healthcare delivery. That is why healthcare occupies a pride of place in the seven pillars of the present administration's ASSURED Agenda. The "R" in the acronym stands for "robust healthcare delivery".
Prioritizing healthcare predates the present administration. In its attempt to take medicare to the grassroots, each of the 105 political wards in the state is expected to have an health centre. Since the administration of the late Chief Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, the first civilian governor of the state, healthcare has always enjoyed special attention with prodigious allocation of resources.
Alamieyeseigha introduced the Bayelsa Health Scheme (BHS), an initiative where civil servants in the state receive medical treatment after a token of about two thousand Naira is deducted from their salaries monthly. The scheme covers the civil servant, his or her spouse and a maximum of four children, not above 18 years. Once enrolled as a participant, the enrollee chooses any accredited hospital of their choice, probably the one closest to where they live.
The scheme, designed to run like an insurance system, is premised on the assumption that not everybody will fall sick every month so, monies paid by those who are not sick in any given month, is used to cater for the health needs of those who fall sick. The scheme comprised consultation, treatment, issuance of dentures, prescription of reading glasses, surgeries and a host of other interventions. Drugs are also provided, though sometimes the hospital may not have all the prescribed drugs at that point in time. In such instances, the patient will have to bear the cost by buying the unavailable drugs elsewhere.
The immediate past administration under Senator Seriake Dickson redesigned and re-christened the scheme to Bayelsa Health Insurance Scheme (BHIS). He also built referral hospitals, the equivalent of tertiary healthcare facility, in each of the local government areas except Yenagoa and Brass local government areas, which already have first-class healthcare facilities. Senator Dickson is also credited with building a diagnostic centre equipped with state-of-the-art facilities.
Because of the importance of the BHIS in the healthcare delivery equation, Governor Douye Diri expanded on it and made it more populist. He has given the scheme a befitting office as against the cubicle where the scheme was using as office. The Diri administration is now enrolling private citizens into the scheme that used to be exclusively for civil servants. The scheme equally covers non-Bayelsans resident in the state so that the entire population can have access to healthcare.
Still in its bid to expand the frontiers of access to quality healthcare services, the state government is collaborating with the National Emergency Medical Service and Ambulance System (NEMSAS), to provide ambulance services, especially in the rural areas, where ordinarily, ambulance services would not have been available.
The state Commissioner for Health, Prof Seiyefa Brisibe, who confirmed this in a radio programme in Yenagoa, said five hospitals viz the Niger Delta University Teaching Hospital, Okolobiri; Diete Koki Memorial Hospital, Opolo; Federal Medical Centre, Yenagoa; Referral Hospital, Kaiama and Family Care Hospital, Opolo have been accredited to provide care to patients that will be using the service.
The beauty of the programme is that river craft ambulances are also part of the arrangement. With the NEMSAS programme, the problem of expeditiously evacuating a patient from far flung riverine communities to where there is a health facility, is no longer an challenge. This is because with the NEMSAS collaboration, in the event of an emergency, a river craft ambulance can be summoned with just a phone call. The ambulance provides patients first aid services, stabilizes the patient, and then convey them to the nearest accredited hospital for proper evaluation and comprehensive treatment.
Another positive side of the collaboration is that the hospital bills for the first 48 hours will be borne by NEMSAS after which the patient or their relations take over the payment of the medical bills.
Commenting on the collaboration between the Bayelsa State Government and the NEMSAS, Miss Ebi Elijah, a Yenagoa-based business woman said the partnership is a welccome development because government alone cannot do everything. She further said it will give people in the remote villages a sense of belonging as they can now access medi-care.
By January, 2025 when the programme would be fully operational, special telephone numbers will be provided for patients to call for ambulance services. Also, more health facilities would be added to the five accredited pilot facilities. With the well thought-out NEMSAS collaboration, Bayelsa State Government is surely expanding the frontiers of healthcare delivery to all the nooks and crannies of the state.
