Health Cabinet Secretary, Dr. Deborah Mulongo has implored Members of Parliament to support the Ministry’s campaign to convince more Kenyans to register for the new health scheme under the Social Health Authority.

Mulongo who appeared before the MPs on Tuesday in what was dubbed the Speaker’s Kamkunji, organised to have the Ministry officials respond to frequently asked questions by the electorate on teething problems the Healthcare Scheme was facing admitted, that while they had made strides in pushing the public to register, a large section however was still grappling with misinformation.

“We believe that as leaders, you can use your offices which are paid by us as PSC to support the process of registration of Wananchi who probably have not been told well as to whether the registration process costs money or not, this is not an AI generated program, a computer will give you what you feed it, if you don’t register you are not captured and  therefore you don’t get the service, we need to work together to help Kenyans access this medicare rolled out by the government.” Stressed Wetang’ula

Wetang’ula’s Senate Counterpart Amason Kingi echoed his sentiments saying there was inadequate sensitisation of the public giving social media players space to mislead the unsuspecting members.

“There is something lacking that the public are yet to understand, as leaders we have the Herculean task to addressing this, when you see the public refusing to register because they claim they are being asked to pay a certain amount and yet registration is free, this means we have some work,” Kingi stated.

In her presentation, the CS said 9.8 million Kenyans had migrated to SHA attributing the challenges those seeking medical services have faced to the public registering while seeking services, lack of the required documentations and failing to include dependants while registering.

“For the elderly people even when you try to register them, it is giving you an error, also documentation Mr. Speaker sometimes they ask for a marriage certificate and many of our old people don’t have, you need to look at that” said Sabina Chege.

“There are many patients who go home because they are told you pay Ksh.200,000 and they cannot afford especially in the hard to reach areas. Let us look at the bigger picture and that is affordable, accessible, quality care to all Kenyans, leaving no one behind, we really need your support in championing”, Mulongo stressed.

The CS gave a breakdown of the status of implementation of Universal Health Care, progress of SHA registration, benefits, package and applicable tariffs, and the means testing tool on SHA which some members had termed opaque and risking suffering the fate the University funding model faced.

“I came when the plane was just leaving the runway and as we ascended yes we faced a little bit of turbulence and thick clouds but we are happy to report that now we are above and we really steering and want to assure you and we are confident that we will reach our destiny of vision 2030 having attained affordable, accessible quality care for all Kenyans,” said the Health CS

The Cabinet secretary dispelling the notion that the Linda Mama maternity package under NHIF had been discontinued stating instead that, “for the Linda Mama, we see that Mothers are covered for pregnancy and child under NHIF but for SHA it covers the whole household. The Mother can come for antenatal, deliver and postnatally but also the husband and other children are covered including the child that was born” the CS clarified.

Members including the National Assembly Speaker also sought to know the fate of NHIF employees caught in the middle of the transition process, the Ministry officials saying they will be seconded to the Public Service Commission for 6 months then the Authority will make a decision on how many will be picked to serve under permanent and pensionable basis while the remainder are redeployed to other government agencies.

The CS also clarified that Medical procedures in different facilities had been standardised and should cost the same the facility notwistanding.