SALIMA-(MaraviPost)-The Ministry of Health has said it is considering introducing health insurance for the country’s citizens as one way of improving medical care.
The assurance comes a week after the country’s consortium on Universal Health Coverage (UHC) was on the knees of Malawi government to seriously meet the needs for quality health services in public hospitals.
Government is therefore labored to increase equitable access to and improve quality of health care services.
This also includes implementation of health insurance scheme that will see those in formal sector paying to subsidies health services further.
Secretary for Health, Dan Namarika disclosed the development on Sunday in the lake-shore district of Salima during Ministry of Health Global Fund and Global Alliance for Vaccine and Immunization (Gavi)’s one day media training.
Namarika cited the health insurance system is working perfectly in Rwanda where citizens pay an average of US$4 (MK3,000) per year.
He added that the system could help improve service delivery in hospitals, as it would attract the interest of the private sector.
“What we as Malawians have always asked for is the service. ‘I go to the hospital, I don’t get this’. I go to the hospital, I don’t get that. But the element of financing has not been in our discussion. In fact, we have even challenged our schools that most of our health workers are not taught that there is someone paying for a service.
“Now what we are saying is that for Malawi to attain universal health coverage, leaving no one behind, the government alone cannot do it. We need the private sector to be part of that process. Now the private sector would like to ensure that when they give a service, they recover their money,” Namarika said.
He said for Malawi to expect anyone to get money on a daily basis from their pocket and pay would be doing a disservice to the people.
“So we don’t want our people to have money on a daily basis so that when they go to the hospital, they have to pay cash. The best way to guarantee that our patients or people are served better is to consider introducing a community or national health insurance programme,” Namarika said.
He observed that up until now, the Ministry of Health was only focusing on service provision and not the issue of financing.
He said they have now finished a functional review on the proposal and there is a proposal to have a financing unit.
“We need a unit that would help track progress in health financing. We need to track progress on the link between public and private sectors. The link between supply of medicine versus financing. So we are now at a good moment where as we go towards Global Fund grant application, we will be having this unit in the Ministry of Health which will be reporting to Secretary to Treasury and Secretary for Health because any financing issues must be linked to the Ministry of Finance,” Namarika said.
The training attracted journalist from electronic, print and online publication across Malawi.
The Global Fund last week indicated that it would give Malawi US$513 million to help fight malaria, HIV and tuberculosis between 2021 and 2024.
So far Malawi has received about US$1.5 billion from Global Fund to fight the three diseases.
The development means that by 2024, Malawi would have received US$2 billion from Global Fund.
