The Ministry of Health, Public Hygiene and Universal Access to Care with the support of the International Labor Organization (ILO) organized on March 29, 2023 a meeting to discuss the interventions of the options project. for sustainable financing of social protection, including the universal health coverage system.
Lasting two days, the meeting brings together, among others, trade union organizations of workers and those of employers. The objective of the workshop, according to the country director of the ILO, Frederic Lapeyre, is to present the project to the participants and collect their opinion in the direction of an improvement.
Indeed, many issues will be addressed, including universal insurance. Sustainable financing remains one of the challenges. “A strong political commitment is needed and the government of Togo has already shown this through the adoption of universal health insurance. Afterwards, it is necessary to be able to put in place mechanisms that will allow the financing of this health insurance. This is what we are going to try to do through these two days of workshop here in Lomé”, affirmed Frederic Lapeyre.
Many initiatives are taken at the national level to achieve universal health insurance. The country has already set up a certain number of free or subsidy programs as part of the health offer, such as the fight against priority diseases (AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, etc.), the protection program school social support School Assur, the WOEZOU subsidy program which supports pregnant women and children. “All these health programs that support populations are also reinforced by initiatives that we see, for example, through the FNFI project. All beneficiaries benefit from a certain protection in terms of health insurance throughout the duration of their loan. It is a question today of putting all this in coherence, of ensuring a better sustainability of all these programs through universal health insurance now that the law has been voted”, commented the Minister Delegate in charge of Universal Access to care, Mamessile Aklah Agba-Assih.
Furthermore, the adherence of informal sector actors to the program remains another challenge to make the implementation of the program complete.
Atha Assan