Principal Secretary (PS) for Medical Services Harry Kimtai on Monday confirmed that none of the patients reported to have been turned away at hospitals were from faith-based facilities.
In a statement by the Ministry of Health, the PS reported that he had met with religious leaders at Ufungamano House to discuss challenges in transitioning to the Social Health Authority (SHA).
The major concern noted during the meeting was outstanding debts owed by the now outlawed National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) to the hospitals.
Kimtai noted that the government owed health facilities a staggering Ksh30 billion, with counties owed between Ksh8 billion to Ksh12 billion. However, he assured the religious leaders that they aim to clear all the debts in the next 90 days.
To address this, Kimtai announced that Ksh1.5 billion had been secured for disbursement to the healthcare facilities, with an extra Ksh3 billion expected next week.
"This afternoon, the committee is going to sit down and review because we have already secured Ksh1.5 billion to start disbursing to all the healthcare facilities. We have done this because we wanted transparency in the whole process because previously some facilities were receiving and some were not Today they have come up with a formula that we are going to use to pay these debts," Kimtai told the media after the meeting.
He also announced that in order to ensure that no more debts accumulate, the debts owed from October 1, when the SHA rollout kicked off will be prioritised.
The faith-based organisations also raised challenges with the technical system used by SHA which they say sometimes clashes and impedes the soft running of the institutions.
“Faith-Based Organisations (FBOs) will join technical teams to address challenges at healthcare facilities, with on-site visits planned. The Ministry of Health and FBOs will launch a joint campaign to encourage Kenyans to register for SHA,” part of the statement addressing the issue read.
He further stated that engineers are resolving ongoing challenges with the system rollout and that additional training for health workers is underway.
Since the rollout kicked off on October 1, Kenyans have consistently found faults within the system with some reporting being turned away from hospitals despite clearing their payments.
This was a result of the Government not reaching contracts with all Private and Faith-based health facilities before the rollout kicked off.
