NGO Buys Health Insurance Policy for One Hundred Widows in Lagos

A faith based NGO, The Counselling Ambassadors Organisation, TCAO, has put smiles on the faces of one hundred widows in Lagos.

The organisation integrated the widows into the Lagos state Health insurance scheme by paying for a year long policy.

The registration of the benefitting widows was done at the annual Christmas programme of the organisation at the Ikeja Local Government Secretariat, with the theme: “Behold Your God”

TCAO’s President and lead counsellor, Pastor Regina Iyabo Obasa said the initiative was to help the widows access good quality of life, including health care.

“The Counselling Ambassadors Organisation is a faith-based Organisation and everything that will assist the human being to live well, to live decent life, mentoring, empowerment, counselling and of course, much of welfare work, that’s what we do. We believe that if you are healthy, you’ll be able to do whatever you want to do, so, we decided to help the widows, many of whom are indigent so that if anything goes wrong health wise, they will have that initial assistance.
in addition to catering for their spiritual well being, we decided to pay for a one year policy under the Lagos State health insurance, so that they won’t have to worry about paying hospital bills and we believe that this will enable them to be able to focus on other things” Obasa said

The representative of the General Manager, Lagos State Health Management Scheme, Mrs Abiodun Abubakar explained that with the eight thousand five hundred naira policy paid for by the NGO, the beneficiaries would be able to access healthcare free of charge at any government or registered private hospital.

According to her, the policy covers treatment for ailments such as hypertension, diabetes, malaria, typhoid and some other common diseases at designated hospitals

Some of the benefitting widows who spoke mainly in the Yoruba language expressed gratitude to TCAO for the humane gesture which they said would ease the burden of out of pocket payments and enable them to focus on other areas of life.

“This sort of programme has never happened before and I am do happy to be a beneficiary, about two months ago, I went to the General Hospital to check my hand which has been paining me, the Doctors gave me a paper to buy drugs and for x-ray, after buying the drugs, I looked at the money with me, it was not enough, that’s why I am saying what this NGO has done for us is a very good thing. “Both the indigent and the widows should not lose hope because this very good help is here, this is a good programme that help those in need, a lot of women will be able to stand on their feet, take care of themselves and be able to train their children to become someone in life” Other NGO’s should emulate this NGO, they are doing good things” the beneficiaries enthused.

During the event, participants were admonished to put their trust in God, while prayers were offered for the well being of the widows, continued peace and unity in Lagos state and the Nation in general.