National and County Governments still confuse NHIF and UHC, Association says.

 The National Taxpayers Association National Coordinator Irene Otieno address the press in Kisumu where the association launched a report on the social accountability assessment for the health facilities in Kisumu Count.With him is the NTA Board Chairman Peter Kubebea{L} and Nicholas Odongo the Project Officer NTA in Kisumu-Photo By Dickson Odhiambo

 By Dickson Odhiambo.

April 10, 2019

National and County Governments still confuse NHIF and UHC, Association says.

BOTH the National and County Governments are still confusing the issue of the National Hospital Insurance Fund’s uptake and the Universal Health Coverage program.

The National Taxpayers Association {NTA} on the social accountability assessment for the health facilities in Kisumu County shows that there is still a lot of confusion about the two services.

Addressing the press in Kisumu during the official launch of the report, the National Taxpayers Association National Coordinator Irene Otieno said as much as both the National and County Governments talk about Universal Health Coverage, there are no medicine at most health facilities in the counties.

She said there is huge debt for the Kenya Medical Supplies Authority by the county Governments.

The NTA National Coordinator said the issue of huge debt to Kemsa has led for no medicine to reach the grass roots.

She said the Association has recommended that there should be deliberate funding to the Ministry of Health to strengthen infrastructure, services and human resource at the county level.

The Coordinator said there is still a lot of wastage in the health sector at the county level.

Otieno said the Council of Governors should look into the issue of wastage and the one of the Universal Health Coverage.

She said the issue of UHC will never be attained with the level of corruption that has been witnessed as envisaged in the Auditor General report about the health sector.

She has called upon the county Governments to attain the required capacity to deliver the health function that has been devolved in accordance to the Constitution of Kenya 2010.

“I must remind the County Governments that the issue of Health is now a devolved function and they must be ready to attain the capacity to deliver the function,” she added.

She advised county Governments to consider returning the issue of health function back to the national governments if they have never attained the financial and human resource capacity, adding that because at the end of the day it is the citizens who suffers the most by the problems bedeviling the health sector in the country.

She added that some counties like Makueni has done very well in terms of performing the health functions and other counties should emulate it thus learn from it and provide the much needed services in the health sector.

“I want to challenge the Kisumu County that will be hosting the Universal Health Coverage conference in the near future to learn from counties like Makueni which has doing great in the health sector while providing good services as well as providing infrastructure,” she further said.

The National Taxpayers Board of Directors Chairman Peter Kubebea said the Government must take an urgent step to identify the gaps in the health facilities across the country as a way of improving the health sector in the country.

He said there must be restructuring of the human resource capacity in the health sector across the country.

“When devolution came, the National government transferred most of the staff to the counties with a huge wage bill,” he said.

He said most counties allocate a good chunk of money for the health sector but most of it is used in the wage bill to pay workers.

“A county like Kisumu has put about 1.6 Billion of which a huge chunk like 1.2billion goes to the wage bill so what do you do with about 300 million remaining?” he said.

He said the harmonization of the staff training should be there, adding the issue of formation of a health commission.

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