President Ruto Fires A Stern Warning To Cartels Trying To Sabotage SHA
The Mt Kenya Times 
President William Ruto
By: Joseph Mutua Ndonga
Worth Noting:
- Then, I argued that the owners of the Private Hospitals are currently burning midnight in trying to sabotage and reverse far-reaching gains that President William Ruto has achieved in breathing new life to Health sector.
- The ongoing piling of pressure on Social Health Authority (SHA) to settle historical National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF) liabilities is part of this game-plan. But these efforts are doomed to fail.
- As Kenyans, we should ask this question. Is SHA obligated to settle NHIF liabilities?
- The stolen funds should be recovered from corrupt riddled NHIF officials who had turned NHIF into their cash cow.
President William Ruto has reiterated that those claiming that National Health Authority (SHA) is not working are members of the cartels that had milked National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF) dry.
They want us to revert to NHIF so that they can continue eating the sweat of your hard earned monthly contributions.
I’m warning them that this will not happen.
Kenyans are not that stupid as they think. They know how to discern truth and lies.
This is the reason why majority of them support the reforms we have undertaken in health sector.
These reforms have heralded to the rollout of Universal Health Coverage (UHC) that offers a comprehensive medical cover to all registered members.
The President spoke just a few days after I wrote an article in this column touching on the same matter.
Then, I argued that the owners of the Private Hospitals are currently burning midnight in trying to sabotage and reverse far-reaching gains that President William Ruto has achieved in breathing new life to Health sector.
The ongoing piling of pressure on Social Health Authority (SHA) to settle historical National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF) liabilities is part of this game-plan. But these efforts are doomed to fail.
As Kenyans, we should ask this question. Is SHA obligated to settle NHIF liabilities?
No. The stolen funds should be recovered from corrupt riddled NHIF officials who had turned NHIF into their cash cow.
While conspiring with the owners of private hospitals, the officials of now defunct NHIF used to mint billions of shillings.
This is by presenting false claims on the bills incurred by patients who sought treatment in their respective hospitals.
The rogue officials would immediately pocket their share after approving these dubious, inflated bills. Some of them were ghost bills.
This explains why NHIF medical cover catered for only bedding charges.
This is despite this entity receiving billions of shillings from members’ contributors.
Given this background, the Private Hospitals had everything to worry with the rollout of Universal Health Coverage (UHC).
This is because the new medical cover which is being implemented by Social Health Authority (SHA) was designed to elbow them out of eating table of NHIF contributions.
Since the inception of UHC, we have been seeing Private Hospitals using all means to derail and sabotage SHA.
This is by among other strategies inciting and bribing some patients to make false claims that SHA is not working.
In so doing, they were also out to paint President William Ruto in bad light by creating a false impression that he took Kenyans for a ride during the 2022 electioneering period.
As we know, the rollout of UHC was one of the key pillars in his manifesto.
Today, besides paying medical bills for patients with those suffering from critical and chronic ailments are the biggest beneficiaries, SHA is ensuring that patients receive timely and quality treatment. 15 million Kenyans have so far registered with SHA.
For the first time in our history, President Ruto’s key intervention of recruiting and employing Community Health Workers (CHW) is working.
107,000 CHW have so far been recruited and are assigned to undertake their duties at grassroot levels across the country.
In every village, there is a health worker who visits every household on his or her own volition and when required to address an emergency issue.
Besides conducting free test to every member of the family to find out whether they are suffering from ailments such as diabetic, hypertension, kidney and heart complications, the health promoter would recommend and help the family with a member, who had a medical condition that needed immediate attention by a doctor, on the best hospital to take him.
As I conclude, allow me to make this clarification.
The poor and vulnerable households are paying a monthly contribution of Sh300 but not Sh880 as earlier indicated. This means the contribution have dropped from Sh500 to Sh300.
Joseph Mutua Ndonga Is A Writer And Social Commentator
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