Dong Nai: Health insurance coverage lower than national average

Dong Nai (VNA) – Though the rate of population covered by health insurance in Dong Nai province has continually increased and reached about 70.6 percent at present, it is still 4 percent lower than the national average.

According to the People’s Committee of the southern province, districts with modest coverage are Tan Phu (56.7 percent), Xuan Loc (57.2 percent), Cam My (59.6 percent), Thong Nhat (60.1 percent), and Dinh Quan (64 percent).

It attributes the situation to local administrations’ lack of attention to health insurance policy implementation, lax coordination between state management and social insurance agencies, the public’s low awareness, and bad medical services at some healthcare centres.

The districts with low health insurance coverage are mostly poor farming areas with underdeveloped industrial production. The majority of their population are farmers and ethnic minority people with low income, who are reluctant to join insurance. Many only buy health insurance when they are sick or have serious illnesses.

Facing that fact, the provincial administration has requested local authorities and relevant agencies to support deprived families, ethnics and students to buy health insurance.

They will also have to equip local clinics, especially those in remote areas, with better facilities, improve checkup and treatment quality, and eradicate the gap between services for patients with and without health insurance.

Dong Nai aims to have over 90 percent of the population in the aforementioned districts covered by health insurance by 2020.

Meanwhile, the coverage nationwide will reach around 79 percent by the end of 2016 compared to the set target of 76 percent, Health Minister Nguyen Thi Kim Tien said at a recent meeting.-VNA