First announced at the Prime Minister’s 2016/2017 Budget Address, and spearheaded by the Dominica Social Security (DSS), Dominica’s pilot national insurance programme to supply financial assistance to young pregnant mothers and infant children is finally underway.
The programme, which is to be fully implemented in April 2017, will be funded primarily by the country’s Citizenship by Investment Programme. Dominica’s longstanding Citizenship by Investment Programme was launched in 1993, and offers applicants citizenship in exchange for a significant contribution to the nation’s economy. Funds from the Programme are collected into the Government’s Economic Diversification Fund, and redirected to support all echelons of Dominican society, from entrepreneurial businesspersons to the elderly.
The pilot national insurance programme is conceived to provide for mothers under the age of 35, and children until they turn four. The programme is due to cover 80 percent of all medical bills, while only 20 percent will be met by beneficiaries, said Executive Director of DSS, Janice Jean-Jacques Thomas.
“I do not believe it is beyond our capacity to create a facility that can first serve the needs of young mothers and mothers to be, and ultimately the needs of all Dominicans,” had said the Prime Minister, Dr the Honourable Roosevelt Skerrit, in his Budget Address.
