Treasury Cabinet Secretary John Mbadi on Wednesday maintained that the government would not scrap the Social Health Authority (SHA) despite uproar by Kenyans over challenges in accessing healthcare.
Speaking on Spice FM, the finance minister clarified that the challenges witnessed during the transition from the National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) to SHA were minimal to warrant an overhaul of the new health insurance system.
CS Mbadi while stressing his stance on the matter, disclosed that the solution to the current crisis within the health sector was not on overhauling the whole system but rather correcting the glitches faced during the implementation of the health scheme.
“Kenyans have been questioning why we have SHA and not NHIF, the latter was not working, Kenyans must understand that if a system is not working, we get a system that is working, it may have challenges from the beginning but that does not mean we get back to a system that does not work,” CS Mbadi stated.
The Treasury CS further noted that exercising patience on the matter would be more prudent noting that the government was working to restore normalcy by correcting the hitches.
CS Mbadi went ahead to compare Kenyans to Lot's wife, a figure in the bible whom the book of Genesis narrates turned into a pillar of salt after looking back at the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah as her family was fleeing.
“The problem with us is that if we attempt to get something to work then we have challenges, instead of correcting challenges and moving forward, we tend to go back,” CS Mbadi commented.
"Kenyans tend to think like Lot's wife who was told not to look back but she looked back and remained at the same place. So we need to be looking forward. If SHA has challenges, we need to deal with these challenges," the CS added.
Further, the CS revealed the government's intention to absorb the pending debt owed to public and private hospitals by the NHIF. He clarified that the repayment of the debt was part of solving the problem within the health sector.
"The bottom line is, this is a national institution, you can not run away from it, it takes liabilities and assets, so once SHA takes liabilities, it will have to pay for those liabilities," Mbadi answered.
CS Mbadi's move comes barely hours after Health Cabinet Secretary Deborah Barasa announced that a task force had been established to ensure all Kenyans, including cancer patients and those on dialysis, access essential healthcare services. "No Kenyan should be left behind when it comes to receiving the care they need," CS Deborah announced.
Kenyans seeking to register were urged to dial *147# or visit http://afyayangu.co.ke. According to Barasa, registration was mandatory to ensure accessible and affordable healthcare for everyone.
