Govt plans mandatory health cover for all

Dar es Salaam. Soon, Tanzanians may have reason to smile if the latest government plan to make medical insurance cover mandatory for all.

This, according to information from the government, will go hand in hand with plans to bolster the healthcare financing system in the country.

The Ministry of Health, Community Development, Gender, Children and the Elderly is expected to table a Bill in the National Assembly aimed at making it compulsory for all Tanzanians to enrol for medical insurance, The Citizen on Saturday has learnt.

Currently, only 20 per cent of all Tanzanians have access to health insurance. The rest, at least 36 million people, rely on the out of pocket payment system to access healthcare services, according to statistics released in the National Assembly last year.

Healthcare researchers have always argued that most of the poor in the country were being impoverished by the direct payments for health services.

But Health minister Ummy Mwalimu told The Citizen on Saturday yesterday that the government was now looking into ways of bridging the gaps in healthcare delivery among Tanzanians by helping the poor access prepaid health services through the existing health insurance schemes, such as the National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) and the Community Health Fund(CHF).

The government is banking on the coming national health budget to finance the plans, said Ms Ummy, adding that the move to boost healthcare insurance will go along with the streamlining the healthcare financing system, including increasing the national health budget.

“This year, we embark on fulfilling the obligation of allocating 15 per cent of the national budget to finance health sector,” said the Minister, adding that the move was part of the government’s commitment in fulfilling the Abuja Declaration. African leaders agreed, about five years ago, to commit at least 15 per cent of their government’s national budget to healthcare, at a meeting held in the Nigerian capital Abuja.

However, many African countries have not followed the benchmarks for health spending, with most of them spending less than the target, some reports show.

Tanzania committed less than 11.3 per cent over the past five years, according to this year’s budget books. Only Rwanda and Zambia exceeded the targets, according to reports. Stakeholders, including the director of the Health Advocacy NGO, Sikika, Mr Irenei Kiria, have always urged the government to increase health spending and instil financial discipline, as a way of addressing most of the long-standing gaps in the health sector.

He told The Citizen on Saturday this week, that the shortage of medical supplies and medicines in hospitals across the country was attributed to government’s failure to allocate adequate funds to the Medical Stores Department (MSD) for the procurement and timely distribution of the medical supplies.

Mr Kiria’s reaction came in the wake of revelations that the MSD was facing a budget shortfall of over Sh500 billion in funds meant to end the chronic shortage of medicines and medical supplies in health facilities across the country.

In an interview yesterday, Health minister Mwalimu told The Citizen that the government was currently consulting the Treasury in trying to close the financial gaps that the MSD was grappling with. “We are now consulting the treasury on the matter and it will be resolved soon,” she exclusively told this newspaper.

Over the years, the MSD, an agency under the ministry of Health and Social Welfare responsible for supplying vital medical equipment in the country has been dogged by financial and logistical challenges that at times escalated into big public health crises.