NHIF; A case of bed insurance instead of health insurance in Kenya..

I am not writing this piece to object provision of affordable and good quality medical services by the government through NHIF. My concerns are if NHIF has put in place mechanisms to ensure that in collecting more revenue, it shall be able to provide better services than the bed charges it has been synonymous with for most Kenyans. For NHIF to make many of us embrace the new charges; there is need for a deliberate campaign by them to elaborately explain how the new charges translate to batter services. Until that is done, majority only view that as a win for NHIF in relation to the court case but what we need is a win by the contributors in terms of improved quality of medical care. 

If no attempts are made by NHIF to conduct massive public campaigns to enlighten workers of the benefits;the subsequent reduction in take home pay for all employees will unconsciously lead to agitation for salary hikes in this new 'haki yetu' Kenya that we ushered in on 27th August. Some sceptics have always argued that they believe that NHIF is barely able to handle the 320 it collects so their capacity to handle increased revenue makes many jittery. Many people will also attest to the fact that while registering for NHIF is mandatory for employees; the body barely produces and dispatches the membership cards on time. Not to mention the fact that even in cases where an applicant photo is spoilt or other details need to be corrected; no one communicates that to the affected party only for them to be told of the anomaly when they make visits to get claims. This in most cases may be many months later and contributes to the negative attitude some of us have about the increased charges.

NHIF; please make us believe in your capacity to get us into a healthier country by taking care of more critical medical matters than the couple of thousands you pay for bed. After all, we make payment to a Health insurance scheme and not a bed/lodge insurance scheme and we get admitted for sicknesses and not lack of better places to sleep.