Health Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale has slammed the President of the Kenya Medical Association, Simon Kigondu, after the latter said the government's flagship public health insurance scheme, the Social Health Authority (SHA), is not working.
Duale's remarks came after Kigondu, on Monday, September 15, during an interview with a local media station, criticised SHA's Practice 360 App.
He said that this app was limiting access to services, adding that SHA has accumulated more debts in 10 months than NHIF did in six years.
“The SHA 360 application is ridiculous and limits access to services. SHA has accumulated more debt in 10 months than NHIF in six years,” he said.
Duale, in his statement, defended the Practice 360 App, stating that the app has helped in stopping fraudulent health workers from colluding with fake facilities to issue pre-authorisations aimed at defrauding the SHA.
He revealed that previously, some fraudulent health workers were selling the OTP codes to enable false claims that the app was successfully curbing.
“The Practice 360 app has already helped stop several fraudulent health workers from colluding with fake facilities to issue pre-authorisations aimed at defrauding SHA. Previously, some fraudulent health workers were selling OTP codes to enable false claims, a malpractice that Practice 360 has successfully curbed,” he said.
Duale, however, accused Kigondu of owning some of the healthy facilities that were suspended in the recent crackdowns by SHA's Digital System.
"It is concerning that the Chairman of KMA appears to be defending some facilities whose fraudulent claims have been rejected or whose operations have been suspended due to serious irregularities."
"However, this is not a shock, as he owns some of them that are either suspended or flagged by our Digital system," Duale added.
On August 29, at least 158 health facilities were closed by the Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentists Council (KMPDC) following a comprehensive inspection exercise by several health regulatory bodies and county governments.
KMPDC confirmed that the closures were part of an exercise to weed out non-compliant facilities.
