Government to map out medical facilities to ensure quality services under SHA

JOSEPH NG’ANG’A-KNA 

The Government is working with the Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentists Council (KMPDC) and the Kenya Health Professions Over sight Authority (KHPOA) to map out health facilities, ensuring they are manned by professionals and offering quality health services to Kenyans. 

Health Cabinet Secretary (CS) Dr. Deborah Barasa said they have employed a comprehensive, multidisciplinary approach to assess all health facilities across the country by evaluating their capacity and ability to offer quality services. This is part of efforts to ensure that Kenyans can access quality healthcare under the Social Health Authority (SHA). 

“This is an initiative to ensure that we map out all our health facilities across the country, identify where specific interventions are needed, and offer the necessary support,” the CS said. 

Speaking in Nairobi during a media roundtable meeting, Dr. Barasa noted that the last-mile areas, mostly in the far-flung and marginalized regions, are often neglected. 

The mapping aims to ensure they meet the government mandate of leaving no one behind. “We have come up with interventions to ensure that drugs are supplied to the last mile—that is, the primary healthcare facilities. 

By December, we will have medication at these centers, and patients will be able to access affordable and quality medicines,” Dr. Barasa said. 

The CS added that the f lagging off of the medicine distribution will happen very soon, assuring that the ministry is working to ensure the primary health care facilities at Level II and III hospitals are fully func tional, as these are the first points of contact with the health system. 

“We are working at capacity building the primary health care (PHC) centers to ensure that they have the right medication and capacity to support the primary health care provision,” the CS said. She said the media plays a critical role in ensuring the success of SHA by creating awareness and in forming people on the need to register. 

“So far we have had over 13 million people register for SHA and we are urging the media to continue enlightening Kenyans on its benefit and showing success stories of people who have benefitted from SHA so that more can register and start benefiting,” 

Dr. Barasa said. The CS added that the ministry has been meeting with support groups representing kidney patients undergoing dialysis and cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy and radio therapy to understand their experience and look for ways to work together and ensure the success of SHA. 

SHA Head of Benefits De sign Dr Samson Kuhora said the Authority is employing the Proxy Means Testing (PMT), a model which uses the social-economic factors within a household to estimate how much they are earning and then calculate the SHA premium of 2.75 percent of the household income for the informal or unemployed people. 

Dr Kuhora said the PMT is used to establish income levels for households, and it is meant to bring about equity adding that there is a platform that allows a household to appeal if they feel there are issues with the calculations on their required payments. 

“This means testing tool drives the key concept of SHA which is the ability to pay where a household which is able to generate more income contributes more into the pool,” Dr Kuhora explained. 

He stated that SHA has been doing daily monitoring of the data that is available and so far, the estimated average house hold premium per month is Sh543 which translates to Sh6,516 per year,” he said. 

Dr Kuhora said the Authority is aware that there are Kenyans who might not be able to afford this as a lump sum and that is why there are stop gap initiatives which include monthly contributions for households which are meant to assist families who cannot pay yearly. 

“We are aware that some Kenyans have seasonal incomes like farmers, and we have been engaging the co-operatives as aggregators so that they can pay for their members and then recover the money over time from sales of pro duce,” said Dr Kuhora.