Members of the public service and employees hired by private companies will benefit from Social Health Insurance (SHI) in the coming year, a decade after a law was passed. It has not been enforced until now.

Employees will be covered by the insurance policy, paying three percent of a monthly premium deducted from their gross salary while the government subsidises an additional three percent. Regional states are tasked to include the subsidy when requesting a budget subsidy for the coming year.

Minister of Health Lia Tadesse gave a mandate to the two city administrations and health bureaus under the regional states to implement the scheme. They will have to collect and report the number of employees in their respective regions and monthly revenues to the Ethiopian Health Insurance Services (EHIS) until January next year.

The EHIS was formed in 2010 to benefit pensioners but evolved to address the needs of public and private workers, according to Zemedkun Abebe, communications director.

"The implementation has been delayed due to the lack of awareness among the public," said Zemedkun.

However, people such as Berhane Eyasu are unsettled about the deduction from the gross salary. The 56-year-old has worked as a cleaner for nine years, with a gross monthly wage of 2,300 Br. She is not eligible to use Community Based Health Insurance (CBHI), a federal government welfare program supporting people without regular income. The Addis Abeba City cabinet has approved 181 million Br to subsidise the insurance scheme to cover 130,000 households in the budget year.

Berhan prefers to take her chances with public health institutions, provided that it comes to that.

"I'm barely surviving with my current salary," Berhan told Fortune.

Policyholders can get medical services in more than 3,000 health institutions that would sign agreements with EHIS. Close to 15 million people are employed, with 866,000 working in federal institutions, according to a labour force and migrant survey conducted last year.

Anteneh Teshome, team leader in the EHIS Addis Abeba branch, received the notice but has not collected the information.