The National Commission for Persons with Disabilities (NCPWD) says no fewer than 600 PwDs have benefitted from the pilot programme of its health Insurance package.

James Lalu, the Executive Secretary of the commission gave the figure on Sunday, in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja.

Lalu also told NAN that the commission was working with the National Primary Healthcare Development Agency in the training of over 3000 health workers that would specialise in handling disability related illness.

According to him, the training would come in the second phase of the health insurance intervention programme.

‘We have provided health insurance coverage for PwDs in the last two years. We started with 600 beneficiaries.

‘We are currently working with the Federal Ministry of Health to improve access to healthcare facilities for PwDs across the federation and we have started the pilot programme with the Maitama district hospital in Abuja.

‘We have signed an MoU for the hospital to become a re
ferral centre for PwDs,’ he said

Lalu added ”Our intention is to have, at least, one tertiary hospital in each state of the federation as referral for PwDs,

‘We are providing training for the healthcare workers in the hospital on how to handle disability issues and make sure they are disability friendly.

‘The training is ongoing at the National Primary Healthcare Development Agency and over 3000 health workers have already passed through the training at the moment.

‘We are creating awareness on access to healthcare facilities for PwDs’.

On income security for PwDs Lalu said, no fewer than 150 Point of Sale (POS) machines and grants of N100,000 each were distributed to PwDs.

‘We have also supported various Associations of PwDs on annual basis with grants to support their advocacy efforts

‘We also provided assistive devices to three Nigerian Universities and the Sultanate Council in efforts to use the traditional institutions to create awareness on compliance with accessibility regulations for PwDs.

‘T
he programme is expected to reduce hardship and and improve the health, sanitary conditions of the disability environment,’ he said.

Lalu said the programmes were also some of the commitments of the commission to ensure access to public services for PwDs in Nigeria.

Source: News Agency of Nigeria