Emmanuel Omurunga
The government of President William Ruto bowed to pressure from faith-based institutions and pledged to clear all the debt owed to them after they threatened to scale down on the services that they offer over unpaid medical claims from the defunct National Hospital Insurance Fund(NHIF) amounting to Ksh7 billion.
The protests to deny the full boarding of the new Social Health Insurance Fund (SHIF) emerged during a meeting convened by Kenya’s faith-based health institutions that include the Christian Health Association of Kenya (CHAK), the Kenya Conference of Catholic Bishops (KCCB), and the Supreme Council of Kenya Muslims (SUPKEM).
The Ministry of Health was thus forced to backtrack and act to assure the faith-based institutions that their concerns would be addressed to avoid a cripple on the health system as they play an important role in complementing other health facilities available in the country.
Medical Services Principal Secretary Harry Kimtai revealed that the government will pay Ksh1.5 billion owed to health facilities this week and another Ksh3 billion will be cleared next week bringing the total owed amount to Ksh4.5 billion.
The Ministry also revealed that it will establish a committee to oversee the payment process to ensure that it achieves the process of clearing the arrears owed to the health institutions.
This happened even as the Ministry admitted that the NHIF liabilities will now be transferred to the new Social Health Authority (SHA).
It added that the new scheme is now having a fully digitised claims portal, making it easy for the affected institutions to lodge their claims.
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