WHO report 2017 revealed 13.8%of the public face catastrophic health and 11% aren’t able 2 attain health care due to inadequate expenditures. Uganda’s efforts to make health care accessible to all remains a hurdle to many natives due to limited financing associated to the sector.

Save For Health Uganda (SHU) has spearheaded the notion of Community Health Insurance schemes (CHIs) in the country aligned to its agenda since its inception. Luweero district being one of the beneficiaries of the scheme, has a population of 500000 people with 80 health facilities, of which 40 are government hospitals and 39 lower level facilities.

Malaria is one of the major epidemics affecting the natives followed by, pneumonia, cough, diarrheal diseases and HIV/ AIDs. Luweero has 27,015 beneficiaries of CHI in 4152 households grouped under 72 schemes.

Innocent Nkonwa, District Health Officer in Luweero affirms that the district took on the initiative, since the budget funding from government is insufficient to cater for people’s health needs.

Fredrick Makaire, Executive Director SHU called for more community mobilization and government commitment towards embracing the programme after a progressive track from 100,000 in 2016 to 170,000 CHI schemes in 2019. Benefits associated to CHI include improved quality services, equitable service delivery and increased utilization of services.

SHU in partnership with Health Partners, Ministry of Health and USAID organized a trio national conference on Community Health Financing(CHF) at Imperial Royale Hotel last week under the theme: ‘Community Health Financing Initiatives: Moving towards Universal Health Coverage.’

The objective of the conference was to showcase the impact of health financing on families and their roles in the system. CHF has extended to over 30 districts and plans are underway to incorporate technology to support the CHF system.

The proposed National Health Insurance scheme aims at ensuring access to efficient, equitable, affordable and quality healthcare putting one and family first. Also safeguards the right health care services are provided with the most equitable standards.

While giving a Keynote address, Prof. Freddie Sengooba Professor Health policy and systems management and Director of SPEED for Universal Health Coverage (UHC), says that we cannot succeed unless the communities are taking care of themselves and doing their role. The population growth stands at 3.6% which needs to be managed. The rationale for adopting CHI is due to persistence of high disease burden, inadequate financing for health and existence of a capacity gap.

Prof John Mugisha, Vice Chancellor at Cavendish University insists, the main constraints of attaining UHC is lack of ability or affordability to pay for health services.

“The way forward for UHC is making strategic choices, having a manageable population, observe equity and not equality while implementing this policy.”

State Minister of Health for General Duties, Sarah Opendi confirms, “It’s only health insurance that will help solve under table payments at facilities. There is corruption in both private and public facilities. No country can actually develop without prioritizing its health plans”.

Some of the recommendations outlined at the conference included the need for a policy to check population growth, community sensitization is key in as far as understanding CHF is concerned. It is vital to build trust between national and international community.

Other areas that need to be checked include loopholes between the technical and political wing, lost spirit of voluntarism and sense of political manipulations.

Andrew Ssemwanga, Vice Chancellor, St. Lawrence University calls upon the public 2 embrace the Responsibility, Accountability, Transparency and Integrity (RATI) benchmark on the part of financing. There is need for a multi-sectoral approach to planning &inter-sectional linkages emphasizing the promotion & disease prevention.

Culture, religion, policy framework, over expectation, building trust and sensitization are key considerations to keep in mind before implementation of the health schemes.

In conclusion, Sengooba advices that Community Health Initiatives need to be grown as much as possible since they are the learning ground and this will help build the national level. Communities need to work and help themselves more with same kind of incentives.