From 12th October to 15th October 2020, the Uganda Protestant Medical Bureau (UPMB) conducted a 4-day training on Community Health Insurance (CHI) at Nyenga Foundation. The trainer was Ms Christine Makobole from UPMB. CHI is a means through which the communities contribute a premium fee towards their medical treatment to a specified facility.

The goal is to increase access to affordable quality health services in communities through establishing functional Community Health Insurance Schemes in at least 20% of the Member Health Facilities.

The first two days involved onsite training on how to prepare and manage community health insurance schemes; what CHI is and benefits for each stakeholder (provider and members). The last part of the training included how to set up the CHI system including the member identification process, registration, receipt and how to effectively track performance of the scheme in order to achieve specific goals.

After the completion of the training, the General Manager and Community worker visited five groups in the village of Wankwale to conduct outreach on CHI. All group members expressed interest in signing up for the scheme.
Core Objectives

• To make medical services accessible to the disadvantaged and less privileged people in the community
• To lessen the financial burden on medical bills for all the affiliated institutions as well as the local community.
• To ensure all patients access the prescribed drugs at the member health facilities throughout the year
• To increase on the clientele base and ensure its sustainability; this is expected to bridge the community and health centre
• To Increase on the quality of care and increase customer satisfaction; surplus from the insurance scheme will be utilized to purchase more drugs

How does community health insurance work?

Pre-existing groups are considered; at least 60% of all group members need to sign up as this protects the provider against only the sickest members of a group joining the scheme. CHI benefit providers because the cost of care of those who fall sick is offset by payments from those who do not fall sick. Each group member enrols with dependents from his/her household; at least four household members are recommended to enrol as this protects the provider against the sickest members of a group joining. Single members are more expensive to retain. It is important for entire households to join to pool risk.

For more information on the CHI or how to sign up, please contact the manager at Nyenga Foundation, Laureene Reeves Ndagire at Nyenga or by email laureene@nyenga.org