By Sylvie Ebitoh | Volunteer, Wealth Creation Department
INTRODUCTION:
This project aims to provide health insurance for 40 young mothers in need into the health insurance program in the community of Tole, Buea, South-West Region of Cameroon. With your help, 27 people have already been registered and another 20 will be registered by the end of the month.
On the 10th of March 2017 a first registration event was conducted. Reach Out Cameroon has covered the cost of this thanks to your donations. This will go a long way in creating a great impact in their lives and in their families: They will not stay at home when they are sick but have quality health care. Also, their businesses are not going to suffer losses like before since a greater part of their health expenses are being covered with your donations.
Other members of the community were given the chance to register on that day. This was also to encourage them on the benefits of health insurance, and also to enable them to save the costs of going to the Mutual Health office to register. Those who registered by themselves are of old age group and hardly leave the village.
ACHIEVEMENTS:
In total, 27 individuals have been registered to the Mutual Health Program under our group. Of these, 25 individuals were beneficiaries of the Keep A Girl Alive program (girls aged 18 to 30, check more about it here), and 2 registered on their own. Now up to 75% of their medical bills are covered for a period of 12 months. From March 2017 to March 2018.
SHORTCOMINGS:
The event faced two shortcomings that reduced the number of external participants (those whom we expected to register paying for themselves): On the day of the registration, an important unexpected funeral was taking place. A major part of the community was involved in it. Secondly, the Town Crier, who was paid to do advertisement for this event did not pass the information correctly (People who came asked “where’s the doctor?”). We aim to increase the numbers during next event.
CONCLUSION:
The program was in all a success and we thank you so much. It’s going to bring about a great change in their businesses as compared to the past when they had to spend nearly all they had on any health crisis. With this insurance they will save more and spend less on hospital bills thanks to your donations
20 more girls will be registered by themonth of May. With time more people from the community will see the need to be registered from the results of the others who are already registered.
According to our preliminary research there’s a critical difference between being registered or not: 1) you go more to the hospital, so for example a small case of malaria gets treated quickly and never gets the chance to transform into a really bad case or pair with other sicknesses 2) If you are not having many health problems that year, you will save about 20 or 30 dollars, you might not even save anything. But if you happen to have a serious problem the economic impact will decrease by the hundreds of dollars. (about 10% of the target group have had severe health problems in the past year, and about 50% important health problems)
Thank you for what you did for them.
Links:
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