Ogona Anita
The Executive Secretary/Chief Executive Officer of Rivers State Contributory Health Protection Programme, RVCHPP, Dr. Vetty Rolegherighan Agala has said that data is critical in decision-making , stressing that completeness, timeliness, and the overall quality of data are very important.
Dr. Agala, who made the remarks at the opening of a two-day data validation meeting/ training workshop for the 4th quarter in 2025 on Wednesday, 20th January, 2026, in Port Harcourt, stated that it is only when correct data is available that right decisions can be made.
RIVCHPP’s Chief Executive Officer clarified that data validation is a quarterly event for the state insurance agency that also provides a platform for retraining of the focal persons expressing optimism that it keeps getting better with each passing quarter.
Dr. Agala reiterated that the more the agency engages, the more the team members get better, urging participants at the two-day validation/training to give their best so as to be more knowledgeable on how to impute verifiable data that will foster proper decision-making.
RIVCHPP’s Executive Secretary stated that though the health insurance agency is saddled majorly with the responsibility of providing access to quality healthcare services for its enrollees without allowing them to pass through financial hardship, they can only do this through the healthcare providers managed by the Rivers State Primary Healthcare and the Hospitals management boards.
She was, however, worried that some enrollees, especially pregnant women, rather than make use of the healthcare services that have been paid for them, free of charge, still go outside the health facilities to deliver their babies, stating that issues of such nature is why the agency would continue to query the data at its disposal until the health seeking behaviour of the people get better.
Dr. Agala queried to know why pregnant women in the communities of the state were still going to traditional birth attendants and churches to deliver their babies.
The Executive Secretary of RIVCHPP then informed that the validation meeting would look at issues of why enrollees still give birth outside health facilities, even as the meeting tries to strengthen the referral system of the agency, to look at the issue of national identification number (NIN), and to deliberate on other packages of the health insurance agency.
Dr. Agala reiterated that if the health insurance agency must achieve an expanded universal health coverage in the state, it has to look beyond the basic health care provision fund, which targets a minimum number of the population, and place emphasis on other of its packages which will help to bring more and more Rivers residents on board its scheme.
Earlier in his remarks, the facilitator of the meeting and team lead of monitoring and evaluation in RIVCHPP, Dr. MacMoses Isaiah urged every participant at the training, especially the focal persons at the 23 local government areas, to keenly participate and see that they improve on their work.
Dr. Isaiah, who is also the head of Statistics of RIVCHPP, stated that there are new developments and approaches for data collection and computation approved by National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) for state health insurance agencies, urging the focal persons to be serious with the training in order to be abreast with the current realities.
Also, speaking at the event, the Head of Quality Assurance of RIVCHPP, Pharm. Bona Jonas Vopnu charged everyone in the agency to be serious and careful with the data they churn out, saying that an agency is as good as the data it has at its disposal.
The meeting/training, which is participatory, also has in attendance representatives from the state Hospitals Management Board and Primary Health Management Board.
Idanye Oruigoni
Head, Information/Public Relations Unit,
RIVCHPP.
