TANZANIA and Germany yesterday signed a three-year agreement worth 10 million euros (24bn/-) to help women and children from underprivileged families access quality health services in four regions of the country.
According to the document, the regions set to benefit are Mbeya, Tanga, Lindi and Mtwara where women and children from poor families will begin to get health services similar to those who have a National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF) Card.
“The money is expected to benefit thousands of such women and children,” the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Health, Community Development, Gender, Elders and Children, Dr Mpoki Ulisubisya, said after signing the agreement on behalf of the Tanzanian government.
“In hospitals and other health facilities, women and children in that category – who were unable to enroll with NHIF - will still be entitled to all services on offer, similar to patients who do have an NHIF ID card,” Dr Ulisubisya explained.
“Under this new arrangement, those people who couldn’t afford to contribute money to NHIF will be identified using data gathered by the Tanzania Social Action Fund (TASAF) and the Population Census, in collaboration with local government authorities,” the PS further divulged.
He however urged Tanzanians in general to join NHIF to ensure for sure that they did not miss out on better and quality-assured health services in their respective areas.
The government is seeking to ensure that everybody gets better health services, and is set to continue improving the country’s health service infrastructure including revamping hospital buildings and facilities and ensuring that treatment drugs are available all the time, Dr Ulisubisya said.
According to Dr Susanne Grimm, programme manager of the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ) who co-signed the agreement, the German government will continue to engage in the areas of quality improvement, social health protection, health financing and governance in the health sector.
“This support will be delivered within the Sector Wide Approach (SWAp) contributing to the objectives of the Tanzanian government in health as laid out in Health Sector Strategic Plan (HSSP) IV,” Dr Grimm said.
Tanzania and Germany have a long-standing agreement on technical cooperation which was signed on May 29, 1975. Based on this agreement, the two countries launched the Tanzanian-German Programme to Support Health in 2003.
The programme, which is about to wind up the fourth phase of its implementation, has registered commendable achievements in social health protection, quality improvement of health services, support to public-private partnerships in health, and installation and use of computers to improve hospital data management, just to mention a few areas.
Last year, representatives of the two countries’ governments held bilateral negotiations which led to a new agreement being signed on November 4, 2015, to extend the technical cooperation for three years beginning April 1, 2016.
