eQuality Health Insurance (Forthcoming)

We are currently in the process of introducing **eQualityHealth MCMC insurance**, an innovative partnership between Maramagambo Community Medical Center (MCMC) and community “Bataka” groups. This vital program aims to support the community in accessing quality and affordable health services.

Our goal is to ensure that all people in our catchment area can access quality health care irrespective of their financial means. Bataka groups are village-based groups formed mainly to provide support to members experiencing conditions of distress due to death. The Bataka group leaders mobilize their folks, collect the money from them and remit it to the Hospital as community contribution to the cost of their health care.

MCMC coordinates with these bataka groups to offer health insurance to Bataka members. Groups can subscribe to the insurance plan by making an annual payment of 20,000 Ugandan shillings (about $5.5 US) per person. Insurance plan members then receive a subsidy of approximately 80% of their health care costs at MCMC. It protects the poor and enables them to have some control over their health care.

The people in southwestern Uganda who are served by eQuality are nearly all impoverished. However, there are some who are the poorest of the poor, especially the Batwa pygmies. The Batwa were the original forest dwellers who were expelled from the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest when it was declared a national park. As hunters and gatherers, after being cut from their forest food sources they quickly became some of the most marginalized people on earth. The low $4 a year eQuality charges for subsidized health care is still beyond the means of the Batwa. In response, the hospital gives the Batwa a 50% discount from the normal eQuality rate.

The eQuality health insurance plan which was launched in March 2010 (initially at Bwindi Community Hospital and serving as our model) has grown enormously. Our goal is 60% coverage in our catchment area. In total, the premiums and user fees patients pay contribute almost 20% to the hospital budget. We are proud of our program because nationally less than 2% of Ugandans have health insurance. But, as we are growing the program to be sustainable, the small amount we charge as a premium and low co-payments are not enough to cover the health expenses of our members.

Would you consider supporting our eQuality health insurance scheme to enable us continue serving the poorest of the poor?

A matching fund of US $300,000 is needed to support care for members of the plan as it grows to become self-sustainable.