Lawmakers advocate health insurance for all

Parliamentary Committee on Social Services has challenged the ministry of health into revisiting health insurance policy to allow service access for the marginalized social groups in the rapidly growing Tanzanian population.

 

The committee members raised concern that the government might fail to cater health services for the vast part of Dar es Salaam population, not to speak of the whole contry, in a decade, if the current health insurance scheme would not be reformed.

 

Parliamentarian Faustine Ndugulile for Kigamboni Constituency told the committee’s session in Dar es Salaam mid this week that an average annual growth of 1million people in the country is too high for the government to accommodate in the health insurance scheme. 

He was of the view that the government had not paid much attention at family planning campaign which could help to regulate the number of people in need of health services. 

 

“As a result, the number of health service dependants has become too high to match with the available resources,” in a country where only 27 per cent of her people enjoy access to health insurance coverage, he said.

 

He decried the meagre budget allocation for health services, attributing it to poor performance by health officers in executing their duties.

 

He said miserable allocation of health funds was in defiance of the 2001  Abuja Declaration to which Tanzania is a signatory, that requires member countries to allocate 15 per cent of their annual budget to improve health sector and for donor countries to scale up their support. 

 

Citing example of non-proportional allocation of health funds, the lawmaker said Temeke district spent Sh360m, which is only 10 per cent of the municipality’s annual budget last year, for special groups including women and children. 

 

Kigoma Urban legislator Zitto Kabwe said the current provision of health services in the nation’s major oncologic disease centre, namely the Ocean Road Cancer Institute (ORCI) left a lot to be desired, given its dire of a total of Sh47.5bn for rehabilitation in the next five years.

 

It has been plagued with an overwhelming number of cancer patients, too high for the ill-equipped institution, he said

“Rural people suffering from cancer are at a risk of losing their life as about 74 per cent of all doctors are centered in urban areas like Dar es Salaam, Mwanza, Arusha and Mbeya,”  Kabwe said, referring to recent report issued by Benjamin Mkapa Foundation. 

 

Commenting, Deputy Chairman of the committee Raphaeli Chegeni told the government to clear all debts it owes the National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) in order to facilitate provision of health services to citizens. 

 

SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN