“Under the supervision of this great organisation, a consulting firm was recruited to undertake a deep look into the health system of the armed forces of Nigeria and indeed a preliminary report has been submitted and I am going through the report hopefully before the end of the year.
“We shall again call the stakeholders meeting to review the report, highlights of the report if possible at the end of the day, will see a complete revamp of the armed forces medical system.
“For those of you who have been in Nigeria 40 years ago, you know that the armed forces medical system was not exactly what it is today.
“During my tenure as permanent secretary and as a physician, I will ensure that we actually bring back that armed forces medical corp where it was 40 or 50 years ago,” he said.
Kana said the idea of the reform was to see that the Air Force Medical Corps did not only serve during war situation, but to situate the medical system as a reservoir medical system for the Nigerian healthcare delivery system.
This, he said, would will contribute to the healthcare security of the country considering the role the armed forces medical system played especially during the COVID pandemic.
He pledged to ensure that the government would pay all outstanding allowances of all medical personnel in military medical services.
He promised to ensure that all military medical facilities across the country would be repositioned and equipped for optimal performance.
“It is true that with this organisation, you can guarantee provision of medical services to the retired personnel and I urge you to continue to support this organisation so they can provide the best medical services for our retired veterans.
“Indeed, the government of Nigeria and the people of Nigeria will continue to appreciate the role you have played and therefore we shall support you even in terms of your time of retirement,” he said.
The Managing Director of DHML, retired Rear Adm. Azeez Afolayan, said the organisation undertook regular stakeholders engagement to take stock of the activities of the military healthcare providers with a view to review their operations where necessary.
Afolayan said the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) had consistently ranked DHML as one of the Health Management Organizations (HMOs) in Nigeria in several categories.
He said the theme of the year’s meeting, which is “Towards a More Dynamic Health Insurance for the Armed Forces of Nigeria” was borne out of the need to maintain top position and improve on its services to its enrollees.
“Essentially, this gathering is for us to have a review of the past one year of activity, identify challenging areas, offer solutions to them so that they can perform better and give services more to enrollees,” he said.
Chief of Defence Administration, Rear Adm. Muhammed Nagenu, commended the organisation for effective performance and called for more commitment.
Nagenu expressed concern with some service providers whom he said were not living up to expectation noting that they should show more patriotism in utilising the resources made available to them.
