The good and welfare of the vulnerable people in Imo State is at the core of the campaigns, advocacies and interventionist drive of my office.

Also, in a bid to have an executive attention dedicated to them, His Excellency, Sen. Hope Uzodimma, in his wisdom, named the Ministry of Women Affairs and Vulnerable Group, ably headed by Lady Nkechinyere Ugwu.

This ministry and my office have continued to liaise to see to the betterment of pregnant women, children under the age of 5, the elderly, indigent and people living with disabilities.

To this end, I welcome the collaborative efforts of the State Health Insurance Agency, State Primary Health Care Development Agency and the National Health Insurance Scheme in flagging-off the enrollment of vulnerable persons in the State into the Federal Government’s Basic Healthcare Provision Fund Scheme.

This free and quality healthcare programme is aimed at protecting these groups of Imolites from the adverse effect of financial shocks arising from very high out-of-pocket expenditure for health care services.

Therefore, I urge those mostly affected (in the rural areas, especially) to take advantage of this opportunity and come out in their numbers to enroll in the scheme at 305 healthcare centres in all the 305 INEC wards in the State.

I thank the Federal and State Governments for providing the funds for the healthcare scheme and the Counterpart fund, respectively.

May I use this opportunity to call on privileged and kind-hearted Imolites to help out by taking up the responsibilities to support the initiative by enrolling their indigent community members into the Scheme to complement the efforts of government at all levels.

H.E. Barr. Chioma Uzodimma
First Lady, Imo State