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.
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By Damas Makangale, Dar
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.
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