The Director of Community Health
Fund (CHF), Mr Rehan Athumani (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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