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Maternal Health Financing – Issues and Options

The average distance traveled by families to reach public health facilities is high and ranges from 8 to 10 kms. Given the availability of private providers, it is imperative to include the private providers in delivery of services to improve the access, and thereby improve the institutional delivery rate. This scheme covers "below the poverty line" (BPL) families by making their utilization of private facilities a cash-less event and also covering direct and indirect out-of-pocket costs such as travel and cost of accompanying person. The objective of this paper is to describe the process and development of this scheme and discuss pathways of creating and strengthening capacity in health systems to implement this scheme. The paper also discusses performance of this scheme and finds whether the scheme has been successful in providing access to BPL families for institutional delivery and thereby providing financial protection to these families. We also discuss the challenges and key issues in up-scaling this scheme further.