Government develops healthcare prepaid cards for citizens

Abia Government said it had developed healthcare prepaid cards to meet the health needs of citizens irrespective of status and location in the state.

Called “Tele-Health Initiative’’ the state governor, Dr Okezie Ikpeazu, announced while featuring on News Agency Nigeria (NAN) Forum in Abuja that the product was ready and would be launched in a few weeks.

“I want to say to Nigerians that in Abia we are going to launch in a few weeks times, our Tele-Health Initiative, Dial a Doc Initiative.

“It is a prepaid card that gives you access to a medical doctor irrespective of where you are and who you are.

“It will be useful and handy for our students, for our aged parents and indeed, for everybody.

“And, it will deepen health care delivery service because we have successfully linked our Primary Health Care Centres to a call centre where doctors are prepared to speak in vernacular.

“You have a choice to either speak to a female or male doctor.

“That is where we are today in health in Abia,” he said.

The governor also said that the government was harnessing the revenue potential of other sectors of the state’s economy to ensure that no resource area was untapped.

According to him, the state has a huge limestone deposit in Arochukwu that can service cement factories in the country.

Ikpeazu further said that the “Long Juju’’ site also in Arochukwu could serve as a tourist attraction, adding that his administration was developing road infrastructure for easy access to such resources across the state.

“Apart from the Long Juju in Arochukwu for tourism, there is huge limestone deposit in Arochukwu that can sustain the biggest cement factory in this country.

“First, you must create a short route to Arochukwu and we are doing that through the bridge that we built called Okobo Bridge.

“We need to create easy and shorter routes to Arochukwu from the state capital before we can talk of tourism.

“Our strategy is to first of all maximise the revenue potential that we have in our area of strength which is leather, garment and fabrication,” he said.

Toward this, the governor said that the state would launch its first automated shoe factory in August, to complement the manual shoe-making process in the state.