The
Director of Community Health Fund (CHF), Mr Rehan M(centre standing )
opening three days on January 21, 2015 in Dar es Salaam, to the leaders
of the SACCOs of entrepreneurs when they organize a seminar aiming to
give them educational on community health fund other are leaders of the
SACCOS.
....................................................................
By Damas Makangale, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
The
promise by the goverment to increase more people in the Community
Health Fund (CHF) to help reduce the number of people having to draw
money from their pockets to access health services in the country is
somehow sucessful and in the right track thanks the giant scheme
National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF).
The then Tanzania Minister for Health and Social Welfare, Dr Hussein
Mwinyi pledged on 5th January 2013 during the discussion with a team of
visiting Parliamentarians from the United Kingdom (UK) House of Commons
who also took time to inspect UK Department For International
Development (DFID) projects in the country.
However, the minister said much as the fund had been introduced in the
recent past, it had yet to pick up as intended. “In Tanzania there is
growing commitment to the expansion of health insurance to achieve a
‘universal health system,’ whereby all those in need of medical care can
access affordable services,” he said.
Speaking
to this reporter in an exclusive interview last week in Dar es Salaam,
the Director of CHF, Mr Rehani Athumani said that the scheme is a
voluntary body established by the Parliament act No.1 of 2001 and the
scheme was first introduced as a pilot project in 1996 in Igunga
district and was later rolled over to all other Councils.
CHF
is a pre-payment, council based, scheme aimed at facilitating the
community to access health care at an affordable premium that is
determined by the community itself.
He said that the membership size of the fund has increased from 468,611
by the end of June, 2011 to 474,760 by the end of June, 2012, which is
equivalent to 1.3% annual growth and likewise the number of
beneficiaries has increased from 2,498,920 to 2,502,794, equivalent to
0.2% annual growth rate.
“We
are now seeking to increase more people across the country as we have
5,602,374 people countrywide depending on the scheme for their health
facilities,” he said
Mr Athumani explained further that the scheme always worked shoulder to
shoulder with municipalities and local goverment leaders as they have
invited 139 municipalities in the collaboration across the country.
The
contribution that members of the scheme require to inject starts from
Tsh.5,000 to Tsh.20,000 and allows them together with their
beneficiaries to have acces of health facilities to Dispensaries, Local
hospitals and Religious health centres.
The
NHIF benefits package consists of eleven services which include;
Registration and Consultation Fees, Outpatient services, medicines,
diagnostic, tests, inpatient services, surgical services, physiotherapy
and rehabilitative services, optical services, dental services, retirees
health services and medical and orthopedic appliances.
The
Director of CHF, Mr Athumani a soft - spoken person said initially the
fund encountered various challenges mainly lack of awareness on the
priniciples that underlie the concept of social health insurance.
He
said that in order to tackle that challenge, the fund embarked on
intensive and extensive awareness creation to key stakeholders.
Stakeholders have gained a better understanding of the concept of social
health insurance as evidenced by the increase of the base.
To
be recognised, the massive contribution of the NHIF in the health
sector in Tanzania for the last fifteen years since its establishment it
won the International Social Security Association (ISSA) Good Practice
Award for Africa 2011 for improvements in its health insurance scheme.
The ISSA Good Practice Award, which was presented at a ceremony in
Arusha on 5th December, was presented to the NHIF for its strategic
approach in improving its medical benefits’ package and health-care
facilities, which has resulted into greater availability of medical
services and an increase in number of the population which has access to
health insurance in the country.
An
international jury which selected the winning entries also awarded
three Certificates of Merit with special mention for good practices in
social security to several other entries, including the National Social
Insurance Fund of Cameroon.
It
was awarded for a project for processing and verifying the authenticity
of civil status documents and certificates of school attendance.
The National Social Insurance Institute of Cape Verde was awarded for
its modernization project titled "new attitudes for new challenges,"
while the Rwanda Social Security Board received accolades for its
strategy for extension of social security coverage to the informal
sector.
The
International Social Security Association (ISSA) is the world's leading
international organization bringing together national social security
administrations and agencies.
Commenting on the Rwanda Health Insurance and the contribution to the
improvements of health facilities, Mr Athumani said that the Rwanda
based scheme is one of the successful health service in the East African
region.
Rwanda
is one of the most extensive community based health insurance schemes
operated in Sub-Saharan Africa covering over 90 per cent of the
population.
Several studies, so far, have documented the success of the Mutuelle de
Santé in addressing the two prime objectives of health insurance in a
low- income setting, namely to increase access to health care and to
reduce the burden of catastrophic health spending particularly for the
poorer groups of society.
It
is a fact that the efforts that have been undertaken by the goverment
of Tanzania through the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare and the
National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) will in the long run see a
tremendous improvement of health services to majority of Tanzanians
living rural and urban areas.
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