Joyce Namugambe
Save for Health Uganda has expressed the need for people in the country to be given enough education about health insurance so that people may be able to carter for their health during challenging times.
This comes at a time when people in the country face health challenges that they cannot finance themselves as it has greatly led to poor health conditions among people, and many have been seen left to zero after selling off their properties to pay for medical bills.
The National Health Insurance scheme has been talked about for some time among African countries has only been spoken about by the Ugandan government but has never put it into consideration, due to challenges that hinder its implementation, such as some ugandans not being well educated about insurance, investors don’t want to pay insurance for their employees claiming that they spend a lot in paying for their different bills such as NSSF therefore they would not want to incur more costs as it makes businesses in Uganda more expensive, others say that the insurance charges are high and unaffordable to people which affects their incomes among others.
In this, Save for Health Uganda found the need to initiate the Community Health Insurance to enable people in the villages under groups to contribute and keep money for the benefit of their health. This scheme has been extended to over 40 districts around the country with over 150,000 people who have benefitted for it.
After Save for Health Uganda found out that people can benefit from the Community Health Insurance so that they can get health care services easily since they find difficulties accessing such services which lead to the health complications, it got all reasons to extend the CHI scheme to urban areas so that even people in these areas get a chance to keep money under groups/communities to overcome the challenges faced during the health trying moments.
While training health journalists on how to disseminate information about Community Health Insurance at Golf course Hotel in Kampala, the Executive Director of Save for Health Uganda Fredrick Makaire expressed concern over the government’s taking so long talking about the NHI scheme without putting it into practice which has left Ugandans out from issues concerning the scheme.
Makaire revealed that it is now over 20 years ever since Uganda has been talking about the scheme but nothing practical has been done yet East African countries such as Rwanda and Kenya has already implemented the scheme with Rwanda having 95%, Kenya at 30% but Uganda still at 2.5%. He therefore showed the need for the government to implement the scheme since Save for Health Uganda has full hopes that it will benefit people since it is very relevant in their lives, and as well expressed the need for people to be educated about the importance of health insurance so that by the time it is passed people will be greatly on truck.
In addition, Makaire noted that one of the challenges that Ugandans have towards the National Health Insurance is not trusting the government with being a safe custody for their money thereby showing the need for an independent board to keep their money with so that they can benefit from their own money and fulfill the obligations from their money.
However, according to Save for Health Uganda, the roles that Community Health Insurance schemes can play will extend even when the National Health Insurance starts such as moblising communities especially in the rural hard to reach areas through their structures from the village to sub county and village levels, they can act as a collection agents for National Health Insurance schemes since they have the capacity to reach people in villages among others.
