The Lagos State Government has urged residents to take advantage of the Ilera Eko Health and Social Insurance scheme to enhance their well-being.
Dr Emmanuella Zamba, the Permanent Secretary of the Lagos State Health Management Agency (LASHMA), gave the advice at the 2025 first quarter news conference held at Alausa, Lagos, on Wednesday.
Zamba gave an update on the Ilera Eko Health Scheme and other strategic interventions so far.
She said that Gov. Babajide Sanwo-Olu, in an Executive Order in July 2024, made the Ilera Eko Insurance scheme mandatory for all residents of Lagos State.
She said that the social health insurance plan is the most affordable qualitative plan individuals could get for just a token amount of 15,000.
“The benefits are general outpatients’ treatment. If you have a cough, fever, malaria, or your child is sick, they will treat you. You can get admitted under it for 15 days.
“You can have your eyes and dental care, chest x-ray, blood tests. You can be treated for some other illnesses under the scheme,” she said.
Zamba listed some of the achievements of the agency in the first quarter to include the establishment of the Ilera Eko Cooperative for artisans and micro, small and medium enterprises.
“We have the Ilera Eko Academy to train healthcare providers and quarterly media parley to create more public awareness on the social insurance health scheme.
“Ilera Eko is the state’s social health insurance scheme, made mandatory through the National Health Insurance (NHI) Act of 2022, and Lagos State has keyed into it fully.
“We do incision and drainage and some minor to medium surgeries such as appendectomy, herniorrhaphy and cataracts now,” Zamba said.
The permanent secretary said the scheme, aside from taking care of minor health challenges, also covers some chronic health conditions.
“If you are hypertensive or diabetic, under the scheme, you get your drugs on a monthly basis. One year into the scheme, you have access to cancer care and dialysis.
“We also have telemedicine under the scheme,” Zamba added.
She gave a breakdown of the different categories of the scheme that residents could select from and pay annually.
“An individual pays N15,000 per year; for a family of four, it is 55,000 per year; a family of six will pay 80,000 per year; the benefits are unquantifiable, all because the government subsidised the plan.
“We are calling on all residents to key into it as it is now mandatory,” she said.
The permanent secretary said that subscribers of the Ilera Eko Cooperative were expected to pay a minimum of N500 to N12,000 as monthly contributions to enable them to offset their health needs.
She said that as cooperative members they could also buy foodstuffs directly from farmers at a cheaper price.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that some users of the Ilera Eko Health scheme commended LASHMA officials for their proactiveness and efficiency in attending to patients under the scheme.
