High healthcare cost rattles retirees
The high cost of healthcare is among the top worries of retirees and a major drain on their meagre monthly pension largely due to their exclusion from the National Healthcare Insurance Scheme (NHIS).
At retirement, civil servants and workers in the private sector are delisted from the NHIS and left to cater for their healthcare with their pension at the time that advancement in age would mean increased healthcare challenges.
Recently, a Deputy Director, who retired from a federal government agency in 2009, Yakubu Balarabe, tried to inquire from the National Pensions Commission (PenCom) if he could withdraw N2 million from his “substantial savings” in his retirement savings account (RSA) to treat his orthopaedicrelated health challenge.
Unfortunately, there was no how he could do that since he had already taken a lump sum from his RSA at retirement.
Having notified he could not take money from his retirement savings to meet his health-related need, Balarabe reacted, “My savings is supposed to serve me and not my next of kin.”
He wondered why he should lower his “status by begging friends to contribute money to treat” his ailment whereas he had money in his RSA.
Balarabe is not alone on this challenge as the Daily Trust recently reported the story of a retired civil servant, Mrs. Habiba Salisu, who spent most of her monthly pension on drugs.
Salisu, who is also a member of the Nigeria Union of Pensioners (NUP), expressed disappointment that there was no social security covers for the healthcare of senior citizens in the country.
“Pensioners are really suffering. In terms of health, we have nothing. You go to the hospital and you have to pay for everything from your pocket. You know, when you are aging, your health deteriorates faster. The drugs are so expensive that you cannot even use your monthly pension to purchase them. There are some of us who live on drugs, we spend a lot of money,” she said.
It is hearth-warming to know that the federal government is not unaware of the plight of pensioners as a result of their exclusion from the NHIS.
Recently, the Executive Secretary of the Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate, Barrister Sharon Ikeazor, expressed worry that pensioners are removed from the NHIS at the point they need the health insurance scheme the most.
Barrister Ikeazor is right going by Daily Trust’s finding that there is a nexus between retirement and increased healthcare challenges.
A Swiss researcher, Stefanie Behncke, found that retirement “raises the risk of developing a cardiovascular disease and being diagnosed with cancer. Estimates also indicate that retirement has quite diverse effects for different individuals.”
Retirement has also been linked with many health challenges such as Parkinson’s disease, diabetes and osteoarthritis partly due to old age.
The PTAD’s head hinted that her Directorate was drawing up a contributory social health insurance scheme for retirees under the Defined Benefits Scheme (DBS).
The more Daily Trust obtained details on the proposed scheme from the Directorate and discovered that it would allow pensioners to make stratified contributions commensurate with their earnings into a single fund pool that is then used to guarantee them access to defined health services, including drug refills for chronic diseases, eye care services, and focused geriatric services.
The scheme, whose details are still sketchy, provides that health services to the pensioners within the scheme would be domiciled at primary and secondary health centres in the locality of the pensioners as this would further strengthen the ability of pensioners to access the services without the added constraint of high transportation costs to access services from centres in the major cities.
“The design of the programme will also task the service delivery centres with verification of life of pensioners within the political ward or local government areas every quarter, as a condition for maintaining listing as a service delivery centre on the programme,” PTAD stated.
In essence, this health insurance programme will allow the pensioners gain more mileage from their meagre pensions, through a pooled health financing mechanism, while improving ease of verification of life for PTAD.
To achieve the plan, PTAD plans to roll out a discount card for pensioners linked to a central database that facilitates record keeping and easy identification by health service providers.
As laudable as this initiative is, there is still a long way to go because pensioners like Balarabe, who are on the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS), will not benefit from it as it is only for pensioners on DBS.