Thirty-three patients have benefitted from the open-heart surgery programme launched in October by the National Hospital Insurance Fund.
The programme is part of a strategy to deal with about 1,000, cases of underprivileged patients with heart problems currently on a waiting list in public and private hospitals.
NHIF chief executive officer Geoffrey Mwangi said, “As part of marking the fund’s 50 years of service, we are sponsoring open heart surgery, among the benefits extended to assist the less-fortunate members in society.”
The programme is a partnership
between the NHIF and hospitals using local doctors to treat deserving cases of congenital heart diseases.
It focuses on
patients, who wait for months before they are seen by specialists for diagnosis and surgery.
“The NHIF will meet the cost of the open-heart surgery and aftercare service of its members on the waiting list,” Mwangi said.
Twenty Mater Hospital patients have benefitted, Gertrude Children’s Hospital has five, Nairobi Hospital has four, Coast Provincial General Hospital has three and Kenyatta National Hospital has one beneficiary.
Other hospitals in the programme include Tenwek Mission, Aga Khan, MP Shah and Karen Hospital. Karen, MP Shah and Aga Khan are reviewing patients and preparing them for surgery.
“The open heart surgery programme is a life-long benefit meant to continue until the backlog of about 1,000 patients with heart diseases on a waiting list is cleared,” Mwangi said.
He said the fund has a budget of Sh500 million to run the programme. Out of the 1,000 cases, 637 are adults and 301 are children.
The cost of treatment per patient ranges from Sh400,000 to Sh800,000, depending on the level of complexity. The NHIF boss gave an update of the programme during a visit by a Nigerian delegation on Wednesday.
The delegation sponsored by the International Finance Corporation to benchmark with NHIF. It was drawn from Delta, Ogun, Kwara and Lagos states. The delegation appreciated the role of NHIF in supporting patients to access services, through a well-structured ICT system.