Vulnerable mothers in northern and eastern Uganda continue to benefit from the USAID funded Voucher Plus Activity designed to provide quality maternal and neonatal health services at a highly subsidized rates for most poor and vulnerable women.

With a voucher at 4000 shillings, a low income earning woman is able to receive safe motherhood services including four antenatal care visits, safe delivery, emergency transportation, post natal care and post partum family planning from quality health facility service providers.

The Voucher system, launched in 2016, comprises a card with prescriptions of the services to expect once one has the card, client's name, cost and a toll-free number in case of need for further information. Village Health Team (VHC) members distribute the card at 4000 shillings together with safe delivery information to youth, men and expectant mothers.

The USAID/Uganda Voucher Plus Activity led by ABT Associates has been designed to expand access to quality maternal and new born services in the private sector for women that cannot afford high charges.

According to Christine Namayanja, Chief of Party USAID/Uganda Voucher Plus Activity, 35 districts in Northern and Eastern region have seen more women go to hospital for delivery and also more babies live which was not the case before.

She notes that previously women opted to deliver locally at home which put both their lives and babies' at risk. This five-year plan has therefore noted progress given their projection of 250,000 safe deliveries and 50 percent of those adhere to antenatal care, postnatal care and family planning.

From ABT Activity brief Voucher Plus document, 13 year old Tereka Anamega from Pallisa district, married to a man twice her age testifies of the initiative; "To my surprise, the voucher we bought at 4000 shillings enabled me to deliver at a very big health facility in Mbale; the voucher enabled me to be transported to Mbale free in a vehicle when an emergency referral was needed." She was able to deliver safely by Caeserean section with all costs covered by the voucher.

Makaire Frederick, who is the head of Save for Health Uganda (SHU), a health insurance scheme, notes that the biggest barrier to health services is financial. It is therefore for this reason that health insurance schemes and such ventures like the Uganda Voucher Plus Activity have been employed to help the irregular or minimal income earners get quality services in times of need without incurring a lot.

Sr. Ernestine Akulu, an administrator at Bishop Caesar Asili Hospital in Luwero, which is one of the service providers to SHU, acknowledges how these subsidized payments by poverty stricken rural dwellers has supported the day-to-day running of their health facility which in turn is able to offer quality services unlike the concept of free health care which our government has failed to effectively run.

Uganda Voucher Plus Activity is a 24-million-dollar project that started in 2016 and operating for five years until 2021.The initiative works hand in hand with Village Health Teams and has seen 70% of the women supported by spouses, parents and community to raise money for the voucher. This kind of mechanism has similarly worked in countries like Kenya, Zimbabwe and Zambia to address critical health and special groups needs.