The importance of health insurance cannot be underestimated. The comfort of knowing there is financial protection against the risks and uncertainties the world can throw at you is immense.
It may sound like a needless investment especially when you want to save up in this harsh economic environment and prioritise investing in your career and other seemingly necessary aspects of your youth, however, reality is different from what you imagine and sometimes it can hit you hard.
The Minet Teachers Medical Scheme has helped me know more about this disease and how to handle it. This medical scheme is real and I urge all teachers to get informed about @Minet_Kenya ~ Pamela Mang'iti, a connective tissue disorder patient in Homabay County pic.twitter.com/sbZ1atGVnz
— Kenyan Collective 🇰🇪 (@KenCollective) September 10, 2018
Health insurance is not cheap and it can be tempting to go without health insurance. With the expensive monthly cost and out-of-pocket costs, you may be wondering you really need health insurance. Many people in their twenties feel they are healthy enough to skip the health insurance
If you have a medical emergency without insurance, it is easy to find yourself with a crippling amount of medical debt, and seemingly no way out of the mess
Minor things can turn into bigger things, as well. When you do not have insurance you avoid going in and getting treated for the little things, which can escalate into bigger things quickly. Preventive medicine and quick treatment is one of the best ways to avoid long hospital stays. If you have insurance, then you will not worry about this as much.
For training teachers, mostly known as TPs in Kenya, getting affordable health insurance should be at the top of their minds the moment they leave school. Why?
1. They are unfortunately overworked. In some schools like ours, TPs had quite a hard time settling in. From cheeky students trying to con their way out of class, to some student teachers having difficulties in utilising the knowledge they learnt in college (which was way above the requirements of secondary schools) to bring about learning.
2. Having a TP position didn’t automatically mean a permanent job position in the future. Some TPs would move about a lot due to various reasons including their respective employees not meeting their needs.
3. Unfortunately a teacher’s (and TP’s) salary isn’t sustainable. With all these economic pressures going up day by day, the last thing you’d want as a young adult trying to make their way through life is to be hit with an emergency health situation – and this is why Teachers in Training should strongly consider getting into the Minet Teachers’ Medical Scheme, an insurance cover that is tailored just for teachers.
Registration requires one to have their TSC number so once you get your TSC number, get yourself into the Minet Teachers’ Medical Scheme!
Registration involves a USSD registration and a biometric registration which is done at the hospital. All the principal member has to do is dial *865# from their Safaricom or Airtel line, key in their TSC and National I.D numbers. If successful, one then is required to enter their name, role and gender. After which the teacher received a message confirming successful registration and a prompt to register dependents if they have any.
