Wetangula Orders Committee to Summon Health Officials Over Poor SHA Service Delivery

The National Assembly has given the Ministry of Health and representatives from the Social Health Authority (SHA) two weeks to deliberate and come up with a comprehensive report about the key challenges facing the new healthcare system.

Speaker of the National Assembly Moses Wetangula spoke during a Mid-term retreat in Naivasha where he directed Chairperson of the Departmental Committee on Health Robert Pukose to engage with SHA representatives, with a report expected to be tabled before the house on February 11.

“I hereby direct the Chairperson, Hon. Robert Pukose, to obtain a transcribed Hansard report of all issues raised by Members of Parliament in this session and hold a meeting with the Ministry/SHA management next week,” Wetangula said.

During the retreat, MPs were vocal about the various challenges surrounding the Social Health Authority, which mainly revolved around poor communication, inadequate funding, and unclear implementation frameworks.

The government, in an attempt to ramp up the number of Kenyans registered for SHA, better known as Taifa Care, has adopted a multi-faceted approach in recent weeks, which appears to have paid off.

By January 22, the health ministry confirmed that at least 18 million Kenyans were registered under SHA. However, a fresh problem that presented itself was the fact that despite the high registration numbers, a considerable percentage of the new entries were not remitting funds as required.

This, coupled with the mammoth Ksh29 billion debt owed to private hospitals by the now-defunct National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF), has led to major challenges in service delivery under SHA.

While acknowledging the challenges, SHA Acting CEO Robert Ingasira urged Members of Parliament to act as goodwill ambassadors for the new healthcare system to boost its chances of succeeding.

“I thank all the members who worked closely with us to increase the numbers, and now we stand at 22 million registered members under the program. There is still room to register more Kenyans,”  he said, adding, “There are challenges, but we are working tirelessly to resolve them.”

The Ministry of Health, in a commendable show of good faith, said it would withdraw trespass charges against Grace Njoki,  who stole headlines alongside other disgruntled patients after storming Afya House to protest glitches in the Social Health Insurance Fund (SHIF) system on January 15.

The patients, some with children, disrupted a Ministry of Health media briefing led by Health Cabinet Secretary Deborah Barasa and Director General of Health Patrick Amoth which was ironically meant to update Kenyans on the status of the Universal Health Coverage (UHC).

On the last day of the retreat, Medical Services Principal Secretary, Dr. Harry Kimtai also called on lawmakers to further efforts aimed at increasing enrollment in the SHA registration campaign.