Anambra Health Insurance Agency enrolls 223916 subscribers, to cover 25% of the population in 2026

---

---

By Madu Obi

About 223,916 persons have enrolled into the Anambra State Health Insurance Agency, ASHIA, scheme, with 35% of them presenting cases of malaria.

Speaking during the launching of the Anambra State Strategic Health Development Plan for Health Insurance 2025- 2029 in Awka, the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Anambra State Health Insurance Agency, Dr Simeon Onyemaechi also said that 10% of the subscribers present maternal care, 10% for hypertension, 5% for management of diabetes, 3% for eye care and 3% for dental care. It costs N12,000 to enroll for one year.

ASHIA commenced operation in 2018 and opened its doors to healthcare providers in 2019 to serve people who enroll into the scheme, adding that the enrolment process was digitalized from inception.

Onyemaechi said that with the meticulous work being done, ASHIA can therefore provide the state with data that can be relied upon beyond what happens in the agency.

According to him, the agency pays all the over 200 service providers it has engaged by 14th of every month, which, he stated, is the best performance by any such agency in the country.

He explained that by the third quarter of 2025, the agency is hoping that it would be in a position to cut down the time for payment to seven days.

Onyemaechi was, however, worried that only 7% of the population in the state have enrolled into the scheme, adding that the strategic plan just launched, the expectation is that about 25 percent of the population would enroll in the next two years.

He urged stakeholders and philanthropists in the various communities to pay the insurance premium for their people, especially the vulnerable members of the society.

He said: "The message is sinking in as even House of Assembly members are enrolling their constituents as part of their constituency projects through the ASHIA adoption model.

The wife of the governor, Mrs. Nonye Soludo has also registered over 1000 people living with disabilities into the scheme during the celebration of disability week earlier this year. Similarly, industrialists and businessmen across the state have been enrolling their people.

Of the enrolled number, 38% are from the informal sector. Since we began, 82% of those who enrolled have renewed their policy which is an indication that our people are developing insurance culture."

He stated that the agency had to set up a technical committee to work out how to increase the enrolment, which came up with the four- year plan and modalities for its smooth implementation.

He added: "As a responsible government, Anambra State has not abdicated its responsibilities. In the state, we ensure the universality of healthcare that no woman should die because they do not have money to access quality antenatal and maternal delivery services through the free health care services the governor, Professor Chukwuma Soludo has initiated.

Currently, over 60,000 pregnant women are registered with ASHIA antennal clinics across all public primary and secondary health facilities in the state and we have taken delivery of over 15,000 deliveries with zero mortality.

Humongous resources have gone into that and Governor Soludo has also ended the era of hospitals without doctors. There is no hospital in the state without a medical doctor.

With the two batches that have been done to address the issue of human resources, the state employed over 500 health care workers, including 42 medical doctors with two drawn from each of the 21 local government areas.

Government has also renovated 326 primary health care centres across all the political wards in the states to ensure that the facilities are fit to serve the people."