As senior citizens struggle with health issues, the Nigeria Union of Pensioners, NUP, Ogun State chapter, has appealed to the state governor, Dapo Abiodun, to include pensioners in the national and state health insurance scheme.
The pensioners made the appeal during the 2024 Pensioners Day celebration held at the NUP Secretariat Leme, Abeokuta, on Saturday.
They requested that, when included, a 50 per cent discount should be given to subscribers.
The state NUP chairman, Waidi Oloyede, in his welcome address, explained that for aged senior citizens, health relief is important, especially as the country’s economic hardship bites harder.
Oloyede thanked Governor Abiodun for the regular and fast payment of monthly pensions, the increase of N5.3 billion in quarterly gratuities, the provision of subsidised rice, and other initiatives, but noted that more needed to be done.
Oloyede said: “Your Excellency, we wish to bring to your notice that most, if not all, the senior citizens battle one health challenge or the other. It is therefore pertinent to say that we, the aged senior citizens, mostly need such health relief as being provided by the National Health Insurance Scheme.
“We passionately plead that the pensioners be rightly captured on the National Health Insurance Scheme and a further rebate or discount of 50 per cent benefit should accrue to would-be subscribers, as such has been allowed to mainstream personnel.”
He added that the long-awaited consequential increase in pension has also caused the older residents to become anxious, stressing that nothing has come of the committee that was inaugurated to address it.
“ May I use this medium to inform you that another most important request agitating the minds of the elderly is the issue of the consequential increase in pensions.
“Consequential Increase Review Committee that was inaugurated at your instance by the Secretary to the State Government on the 19th of July, 2022, had its inaugural and only meeting on the 2nd of August, 2022. To our dismay, nothing has been heard as an outcome from the committee,” he stated.
The pensioners, while expressing their unwavering support to the Abiodun-led administration, however, called for a representation of pensioners along with the organised labour at the negotiation forum to be constituted in respect of the new national wage increase.
In her remarks, the permanent secretary of the Bureau of Establishment, Mrs Lydia Fajounbo assured the pensioners that the government would continue doing its best to meet their demands.
