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"id": 300801,
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"content": "the NHIF that the sample contrary to what my friend has said today, was big enough – and the report is here – for NHIF to assess accurately, given its membership – and Dalmas was right - at that point in time, not all Kenyans that the NHIF was capable of rolling out an outpatient healthcare under universal coverage. It is on that basis – the reports are here – that when the Minister of State for Public Service approached the NHIF, the NHIF was prepared to roll out an outpatient and inpatient cover for the civil service, the police and the disciplined forces. When the NHIF did that, one thing was very important. What formula were they going to use to serve the 200,000 plus civil servants in rolling out the scheme? They had to use their own service providers and the service providers for the NHIF are both the private sector service providers and the public sector service providers. Members of Parliament must know that in Kenya today, 50 per cent of healthcare is provided for by the private sector including the NGOs, mission hospitals and the public sector. So, when the NHIF gave out an open tender for people to apply, given the conditions under the contract with the Ministry of Public Service, those who applied had to meet the conditions and were chosen on that basis. Again, the documents are there for the NHIF to say so. It was precisely because Meridian and Clinix did this pilot programme that they were much more prepared to respond to this tender than others. Secondly, Clinix and Meridian have done in the health sector what Equity Bank did in the banking sector. In other words, Clinix and Meridian realized that if you are going to roll out patient care scheme, take your services to the people where they are. Let it be close to the people. The second thing you do is make your consultancy fee affordable by the people. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, some of the private sector hospitals which did not do this could not do so, but later, they learnt the game. I will give you an example. Karen Hospital which refused the capitation arrangement earlier learnt the game later. Karen Hospital itself has started putting up its clinics in Meru, Nyeri, Nakuru, Naivasha and elsewhere. In actual fact, in Meru, Karen Hospital charges only Kshs200 for consultancy, whereas Aga Khan Hospital, which has a branch there charges Kshs1,000. Obviously, people will go to Karen Hospital and not Aga Khan – I am telling you. So, it is a question of trade wars. What has happened in this whole hullaballoo is that we are witnessing very good trade wars in the health sector. The losers are fighting the winners and as usual in Kenya, when the losers are fighting the winners, they will go to Public Procurement Oversight Authority (PPOA), the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission (KACC), Parliament and so on. Indeed, today, in another tender in Parliament, somebody has shown us a document of somebody who has gone to PPOA rather than wait until PPOA has made a decision. They are coming to Parliament to ask a parliamentary Question. Let us be frank with each other. When we see these trade wars and they are allege irregularities, let us establish competent bodies to look through the irregularities professionally. Indeed, that is what I recommended when I made my speech soon after that hullaballoo at NHIF. I said that I would like forensic experts, EACC, Kenya National Audit Office and the Efficiency Monitoring Unit (EMU) to go to the NHIF in order to establish the truth. This was because this Board was incompetent. If necessary, and if you want another private sector forensic firm, let them do it. However, we cannot guess in this kind of thing. Depending on guess work is making a lot of mistakes."
}