By Landing Colley
Fatoumatta Njai National Assembly member for Banjul south has bitterly criticized the Government of the day over the National Health Assurance Bill 2020 presented before the National Assembly for consideration.
The said Bill seeks to protect, promote and fulfil right to health care services which is the fundamental human right recognize under international covenant on economic, social and cultural as well as other regional and international instrument which The Gambia is a party.
It also seeks to establish a national health insurance authority to implement a highly insurance scheme and establish a form which will pay for the cost of health care system to members of the scheme as well provision for private health insurance scheme.
The scheme is expected to benefit the population by eliminating or reducing out of pocket expenditure on health which the national health account survey accounts for 24.55% according to 2017 survey. It is also to provide the financial risk protection, increasing access to quality health care service and improving the overall health care system for better services delivery.
Meanwhile, during the debate on the said Bill, Fatoumatta Njai NAM for Banjul South said “I think that the government has brought this Bill prematurely and I think it is scam not a scheme because I don’t think this government is ready for a national insurance scheme when we cannot horn obligation to equip our hospital properly.”
She added that “before you can have a medical scheme which the objective is to protect, promote and fulfil right to health care services but let them equip the hospital properly before they fulfil this obligation.”
According to her, if The Gambia is a party to those agreements in the international bodies and they fail to fulfil those agreements, would they fulfil the national insurance bBill?
The Bill that seeks to protect household from pocket expenditure, she said “we will always have pocket expenditure because when we go to the hospital even a sample medicine (paracetamol) is a problem and when it comes to contribution, if I have D700 how am I going to contribute and what is going to guarantee that government would fulfil their contribution into this scheme”?
She urged fellow NAMs to squeeze the government to tell them the percentage they are willing to contribute adding that still now in the pension scheme the government haven’t tell them what they will contribute when employees were told to contribute 5%.
“They are ready to take 5% from the poor Gambians yet unwilling to tell them how much they will contribute. I think we should be real and bring to this august assembly what we can fulfil,” she added.
Meanwhile, Sulayman Saho NAM for Central Baddibu said “the national health insurance is a good bill and the object are very clear but what I want to put to our members is that there is nothing impossible on earth, although we need to ensure that the ground is save for implementation.”
“We need to find out because it needs resources and beside any committee that this bill will be referee to I believe they will do what is necessary and scrutinize the bill. We cannot just say that this health scheme cannot be implemented,” he added.
However, Mambury Njie Minister of Finance responding to some of the doubt said “we will never involve in any scheme that will squeeze from the poor, here we are talking about the rich subsiding the poor and that is the intension of this bill.”
“we have to believe in ourselves, we cannot be dependent on outsider and this is not a thing by the executive but it belong to both the national assembly, the judiciary, because we will never subscribe to any scheme that will not protect the most vulnerable in our society,” he clarified.
Nonetheless second reading of the bill was approved and referred to the assembly business committee to send it to a committee or the committee of the whole house in accordance with clause 68 (1) of the standing order