On Saturday, September 10, the National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF) biometric system was crippled by a faulty transformer affecting its services in hospitals across the country.
In a statement later that day, NHIF announced that it had reverted to manual system to ensure that no patient was turned away or forced to pay for services covered by NHIF.
The organisation further revealed that a team had been sent out to fix the faulty transformer to restore real-time services.
"NHIF wishes to assure members that the technical team is working tirelessly to restore services to normalcy. In the meantime, the public is notified that alternative manual processes have been implemented to ensure uninterrupted services while seeking treatment in hospitals.
"Further, NHIF has communicated to all hospitals to ensure patients are not denied services or asked to pay for services that NHIF covers," the statement read in part.
In the manual system, patients under the programme can visit accredited facilities with their NHIF cards as well as ID cards to access services.
Alternatively, Kenyans can also access the services via a USSD code, *155#, where they will be required to provide their identification card number as well as apply for a specific service.
The manual system was faced out in July 2021 by the introduction of the biometric system in the organisation's attempt to tame fraudulent activities where several individuals would use one card to access services.
The switch was also aimed at speeding up patient approvals as well as disbursements to health facilities.
In the NHIF statement, the faulty transformer affected the biometric system on the mid-morning of Friday, September 9.
"NHIF wishes to apologize to members for the unforeseen disruption of services due to a critical power fault occasioned by a faulty transformer.
"The Fund notes with deep concern the distress members are facing due to the power outage that has caused system downtime since yesterday mid-morning," read the statement by NHIF.
The programme serves 25 million members, 7 million of whom enrolled as principals.
