Factors affecting enrollment of community health fund members: A Case of Kwimba district
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Date
2015
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Mzumbe University
Abstract
This study explored the factors affecting CHF enrollment in Kwimba District Council. It was set to explore the community’s knowledge, perception, preferences participation or involvement in decision making. Cross sectional study design was employed in this study as research design. In line with this design, simple random sampling and purposive sampling techniques were used for sample selection, whose respondents were chosen from Ngudu and Wala Ward, particularly in four villages; Kakora, Welamasonga, Isaga, and Sumaha. Data were collected through questionnaire to key informants. These comprised both open ended and close ended questions. Findings of the study revealed that majority of population in Kwimba district were peasant. They preferred government health facilities as their primary health service provider due to its cheapness, availability and accessibility. Despite these facts, in favor of Community Health Fund, Kwimba district suffered from low enrollment. Only 3.2% were members (2120 households out of 64,720) mainly because the community had not received enough information on CHF. This has been due to low knowledge on existence and benefits of CHF among the community (especially nonmembers in remote areas). Other factors entailed poor quality of health services in terms of availability of drugs, medicine, medical equipment, supplies and diagnosis, referral systems, poor involvement of community on CHF management, and decisions. Study revealed that Community knowledge and perception towards CHF, community participation on CHF, and community preferences on health providers affected enrollment of CHF members. This study recommends for the following; that the district Management should increase efforts on sensitization of CHF benefits especially in remote areas at harvesting seasons. The district should also improve quality of health services by setting aside some amount of drugs for CHF in case they run out of drugs. There is a necessity too for the district to improve community participation in the local organization and implementation of the CHF scheme and lastly discourage user fee by increasing cost to encourage CHF enrollment
Description
A dissertation submitted to the School of Public Administration and Management in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of the degree of Master in Health System Management of Mzumbe University
Keywords
Community health fund, Health facilities, Access to health facilities, Community health fund-Tanzania
Citation
APA