AfricaPress-Tanzania: SPECIAL Seats MP Bernadetha Mushashu has said she is dissatisfied with a slow pace of enrolling new members in the Improved Community Health Fund (CHF).
She noted that out of 128,000 people registered in Bukoba Municipal Council those who had been provided with membership cards to date were only about 1,300 (equivalent to 4.6 per cent).
“More efforts should be made to enrol more members in CHF and access health services at reasonable costs,” she said.
The programme was launched on December 20, 2018 where about 162 Enrolment Officers from Bukoba District Council and Bukoba Municipal Council were trained and were expected to sensitise new members in their respective villages.
She noted that the fifth phase government under President John Magufuli had taken positive measures to improve health services through the construction of dispensaries and health centres.
“For just 30,000/-a member with CHF card can get treatment all the year together with six members of his/her family at health facilities, including regional hospitals,” she said.
She appealed to officers to be good envoys and educate people from the grassroots on the importance of joining CHF.
He also thanked donors who had been supporting the government in improving health delivery.
CHF was implemented by Health Promotion and System Strengthening Project (HPSS) with support from Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC).
HPSS National Coordinator, Elizeus Rwezaura said the project was implemented in every region, adding that about 3,700 enrolment officers were involved in the exercise in Mwanza, Kagera, Geita, Simiyu and Tabora regions.
CHF was implemented in three regions-Dodoma, Morogoro and Shinyanga since 2012 where about 338,209 households were registered.
The regions with the number of registered members include Dodoma (156,921), Morogoro (111,523) and Shinyanga (69,765).
Meanwhile, Ms Mushashu has appealed to residents to diversify by planting alternative cash crops, including avocados and vanilla to traditional coffee.
“This will increase people’s incomes,” she said.
She explained that Kagera Region had fertile soil and plenty of rainfall to produce more cash crops instead of depending on traditional coffee. “Vanilla is an attractive alternative cash crop where 1kg of vanilla can fetch up to 150,000/- compared to 2,000/- for a kilogramme of coffee. Farmers should be encouraged to switch to vanilla to increase their incomes,” she said, adding that there was no reason at all why Kagera should have a high rate in malnutrition among children because there was plenty of food.
