Residents line up in front of a mobile enrolment center from the Ivory Coast health authorities in Abidjan Monday, June 10, 2024. The country’s universal health coverage program, has been criticized since its inception in 2019 for an inefficient voucher system that has made it impossible for participants to access the benefits.
The mobile enrollment centers being rolled out at markets and remote neighborhoods are meant to allow Ivorians to sign up for the program and provide them with cards on site so they can immediately start receiving care at hospitals, clinics, and pharmacies around the country.
He said that while his son was being treated for malaria at a hospital, the facility ran out of medicine. He was given a voucher and told find the medicine at a local pharmacy. “There are so many pharmacies where if we go with the card, it doesn’t work. So we want to know, where are the pharmacies where we can go and use the card?” he said. “Also, when we go to the hospital with the card, they say it doesn’t work. So we don’t know what this card is even worth.”