Abstract:
Background: In rural Tanzania vulnerable groups, notably pregnant women and children often pay to some of medical equipments when they want to give birth, pay for medicines and modern contraceptive despite the existing exemption policies. The Tanzanian National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) with financial support from donors initiated a five year program to distribute free health insurance cards to poor pregnant women and their partners. The insurance cards empower them to overcome financial barriers in accessing family planning, maternal and child health services. This study aims to explore the role of health insurance scheme in promoting family planning services in Mbarali district, Tanzania.
Objective: To explore the role of health insurance scheme in promoting family planning services in Mbarali district.
Methodology: A total of 15 individuals participated in IDIs and 5 FGDs involve 40 participants, were conducted comprising of 6 participants in the smallest group to 10 participants in the largest group. Respondents were purposively selected basing on their participation in the scheme.
Results: The results of this study have testified that health insurance to some extent has promoted the use of family planning services in Mbarali district.That is having insurance card allowed community members to choose any family planning service provider of choice. The health insurance has increased availability of family planning commodities and medical instruments in all range of health care facilities. Furthermore for male partners who accompanied their wives to family planning clinics, their wives were reported to be as attentive to instructions and show up for their next visits as advised, this was compared with women who come by themselves at the first visit.
Conclusion: For the family planning services to be promoted there is a need that the benefit package and criteria for targeting beneficiaries are well understood by community. Income earned through the health insurance scheme can be used to improve availability of contraceptives and quality of care to satisfy clients’ needs and ultimately improving health seeking behaviours of the target population.
