Ministry of Health offices in Nairobi, Kenya// Photo Courtesy
There is a sigh of relief to Kenyans who have been struggling with securing health services following latest government directive through the Ministry of Health.
The Ministry has announced that it is going to clear all the pending dues owed to hospitals by the defunct National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) by next week, thus ensuring stalemate in the health sector is resolved.
This comes shortly after the Kenya Conference of Catholic Bishops (KCCB) attacked the government over failure to remit unpaid NHIF claims to hospitals , particularly faith based health facilities.
In response to these claims, the government affirmed that it is fully committed in ensuring all the bills are sorted out.
Health CS Deborah Barasa, while defending the ministry asserted that the government has worked hard to mobilise over Sh 7 billion in the past one month to settle arrears .
“We are fully committed to clearing the historical debts, and in the past month alone, we mobilised Sh 7.58 billion to settle these arrears,” adding that Sh 5.05 billion had already been disbursed to various health providers, including Sh938 million to faith-based facilities by the new Social Health Insurance Fund, under Social Health Authority.
Health CS Deborah Barasa in a past event//Photo Courtesy
NHIF, according to the ministry, has been owing health facilities Sh 19 billion.
The government insisted its commitment to progressively clear all unpaid NHIF dues, assuring that by next week the remaining debts will be disbursed.
“The remaining Sh2.5 billion will be disbursed by next week,” Barasa confirmed, stating that currently, the ministry is reconciling new claims submitted by health providers in October and November, 2024 under the Social Health Insurance Fund.
She went ahead assuring that once the reconciliation is done, all the pending claims shall be paid on time.
While meeting stakeholders from the cooperative sector and Members of Parliament from the Western region to share her updates on the progress toward Universal Health Coverage (UHC), the CS reaffirmed the significant strides the health sector has made in clearing NHIF debts
” KSh 3 billion has already been released, followed by another KSh 3 billion, with an additional KSh 2 billion scheduled for payment by the end of November.”
She also said that over 14 million Kenyans have registered with SHA.
Additionally, a good percentage of health facilities have also registered.
“With 7,929 healthcare facilities already onboard, we are now working to integrate an additional 1,079 facilities from NHIF and other service providers,” she updated.
