Reverend Fr. Emmanuel Katabaazi, the Masaka Diocesan Health Coordinator has asked the government to expedite the establishment of the National Health Insurance scheme to enable elderly persons to access better healthcare.
He made the appeal during the commemoration of World Day for the Sick, which the Catholic Church observed through praying, sharing charity, and showing kindness to the elderly and sickly.
Fr. Katabaazi was prompted to make the call from their experience in holding the free medical camps, which he says has exposed them to the underlying gap in the delivery of appropriate healthcare to elderly persons. According to him, thousands of elderly persons are missing out on proper healthcare due to limited accessibility and affordability.
He says that the majority of the elderly people especially in the rural communities are always on the lookout for free medical camps to get treatment, saying if they had earlier been enrolled under the universal health insurance scheme and gradually contributed their premiums, they would be helped to access better healthcare and eventually live longer.
Fr. Katabaazi explains that because elderly people get their body immunity compromised due to age, they usually get complications that require specialized healthcare, which the majority can not afford.
Fr. Katabaazi has on the other hand called upon relatives of elderly people to avoid deserting them, saying that many of them have had their conditions deteriorate due to lack of psychosocial support.
He indicates that the church had earlier thought of establishing common care homes for elderly persons, but they found it not sustainable in the absence of close relatives of these people.
Rt. Rev. Serverus Jjumba, the Bishop of Masaka Catholic Diocese also called upon the community leadership to always look out for the needy persons in their communities and extend to them affordable support for their welfare.
Notably, in March last year parliament passed the National Insurance Bill that would require all Ugandans aged 18 to contribute to the national Insurance Scheme, but the bill was prematurely withdrawn to address loopholes cited by the Minister of Health, Dr. Jane Ruth Aceng.
It was reintroduced in the early days of the eleventh parliament, and apparently, the parliamentary committee of Health Affairs is conducting consultations about it.
