For the past five years, Ivorians have had access to universal health coverage. The Ministry of Health and Public Hygiene is working hard to ensure that enrolment is effective throughout the country. Despite this, people still need to be convinced by the health services on offer.
The initiative launched in 2019 is still struggling to satisfy all Ivorians. Enrolment centers are located as close as possible to the population – some are even mobile – but the care offered to CMU cardholders is open to criticism.
“There are so many pharmacies where it doesn’t work. Even at the hospital, we’re told it doesn’t work. So we don’t know what this card is worth”.
“When we went to the pharmacy and I presented the voucher, the pharmacy told me ‘no, it’s reserved for civil servants. And that it won’t work for us, the individuals”.
Despite the efforts of the Ministry of Health and its partners, these complaints are becoming increasingly common. Universal health coverage in Côte d’ Ivoire is supposed to cover 70% of the population’s healthcare expenses for $1.65 a month. Despite the criticism, the Ivorian authorities are optimistic. They want to make universal health coverage the country’s basic insurance.
“We’re currently considering the possibility of making this card usable in private establishments. And in the end, we’ll have a single health coverage platform in our country, meaning that if you’re privately insured, you’ll be on the same platform as universal health coverage, which will be the basic insurance. The other insurances will only be complementary, as in the big countries we all know”, explains Pierre Dimba, Minister of Health.
Five years after its launch, 13 million people are listed in the CMU database, representing 40% of the Ivorian population.
