Home » Ministry launches “KADI”, documentary on Reproductive Health Out-put Based Aid
Scores of stakeholders involved in provision of reproductive health services converged at the Louis Leakey Auditorium of the National Museum in Nairobi, to witness the launch of “KADI”, a documentary film of the Reproductive Health –Out put Based Aid (RH-OBA) programme. This is a programme supported jointly by the German Development Bank KfW and Ministry of Public Health and Sanitation (MoPHS). The function organized by the MoPHS was held on the morning of August 22, 2012. The Director of Public Health Dr. S.K Shariff officiated the KADI launch saying “the RH-OBA programme is an initiative whose time has come, and will continue to be relevant until the country becomes a middle-income country as envisaged in the Vision 2030”.
The RH-OBA is one of the government’s flagship programmes in the Vision 2030. It seeks to address Millenium Development Goals 4 and 5 by targeting the poor with subsidized reproductive health services that include delivery under skilled attendance, family planning and gender based violence recovery services. The programme has been running since 2005 and has now been rolled out to four districts (Kiambu, Kitui, Kisumu and Kilifi) and two urban slums (Viwandani and Korogocho). Key lessons drawn from the implementation of this programme will be useful in the rolling-out of the national social health insurance scheme as proposed in the draft Healthcare Financing Strategy. They include building strong public-private partnerships; poverty targeting mechanisms; solidarity mechanisms; and accreditation and quality assurance among service providers – among others. Indeed the OBA model can be used to form the basis of a social protection mechanism to cover the very poor in the society. The Equity and Access Fund proposed within the draft health financing strategy could easily be built upon the OBA model.
The documentary prepared with the support of Population Council, aptly brings out these issues. First hand experiences as narrated by government officials, researches from Population Council, staff of PriceWaterHouse Coopers, service providers, patients and field workers attest to the positive contribution that the RH-OBA is making in improving maternal and child health. The government sees RH-OBA as a worthwhile investment that directly tackles maternal mortality, while at the same time addressing quality of service provision. No doubt, many poor mothers are getting access to health facilities and delivering under skilled medical care thereby averting undesirable morbidity and mortality. This demand side financing mechanism has also contributed to improved quality of services among participating facilities. Reimbursements received for services provided have been re-invested into improvement of service provision for example procurement of equipment, refurbishment of facilities and hiring of additional staff.
View documentary at www.rhvouchers.org
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