Corps members to get health insurance in 2018 budget

The Federal Government has made provisions for corps members to be covered by health insurance in the 2018 budget.

This plan for the corps members was made known on Wednesday, May 16, 2018 by the Chairman of Senate Committee on Health, Lanre Tejuoso while contributing to a motion sponsored by Andrew Uchendu.

According to Premium Times, Uchendu lamented the insensitivity of officials of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) towards corps members who fall sick during the three weeks orientation.

To buttress his points, the lawmaker cited two corps members who died at NYSC camp.

Uchendu made reference to Hilda Amadi who died at the NYSC camp in Yipkata, Kwara State during the corps members three-week orientation course

He also made reference to a graduate of Oil and Gas Engineering from the University of Port Harcourt was said to have slumped and died on April 26.

The corps member reportedly died after she suffered a bone fracture during a morning drill on Monday, April 23, 2018.

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However, Tejuoso said that the one percent of the Consolidate Revenue Fund (CRF) will ensure that youth corpers are covered by health insurance.

“I want to refer to the budget that we are passing today; that the issue of youth corpers in Nigeria is well highlighted.

“The introduction of the one per cent of the consolidated revenue fund that is going to be introduced in this new budget will ensure that all the youth corpers are covered by the health insurance.

“At events like this, you don’t need to rely on the doctors in camp. Any youth corper will be entitled to go to any hospital in the location in the local government that is covered by health insurance.

“So this kind of incident won’t repeat itself. The solution is included in this new budget that all the 300,000 youth corpers, every year, will be covered by the health insurance,”

NYSC increses corps members allowance

Recall that the NYAC management recently announced an increase in local and transportation allowances of corps members.

The Scheme's Director, Press and Publications Mrs Adenike Adeyemi announced the increase in the corps members' transportation and local allowances in a statement.

The statement states that the transport allowance for each corps member has been increased from N1,500 to N1,800, while their local allowance is now N1,400.