The government will regulate the referral of patients seeking treatment outside the country after MPs passed a law providing that such referrals be done on exhaustion of local options.
Lawmakers on Tuesday voted to pass the Health (Amendment) Bill, 2019, which provides that the Health Cabinet Secretary shall develop policy guidelines on the mechanisms for referral of patients to health institutions outside the country.
This technically means that patients will not travel without consulting the government should President Uhuru Kenyatta assent to the legislation.
The Health CS will have a say on which conditions would be deemed fit for such referral to hospitals outside Kenya, after consultations with the Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentists Council as well as the National Hospital Insurance Fund.
The bill sponsored by Kesses MP Swarup Mishra says that a public health facility that refers a patient to a health institution outside the country shall ensure that adequate consultations are undertaken with the Kenyan mission in the country in which the referral is made.
The bill provides that the consultations be conducted with the view to establishing the credibility of the health institution where a patient is referred.
“Policy guidelines issued by the Cabinet Secretary shall ensure that adequate measures are taken to establish whether the health institution to which a patient is referred has adequate health equipment and health personnel,” the proposed law states.
The bid is to ensure that referrals outside the country are not subjected to abuse and to prevent the mass exodus of patients from Kenya to countries abroad.
National Assembly Health committee chaired by Murang'a Woman Representative Sabina Chege in a report adopted by the House, said the exodus strains private as well as public resources.
MPs reasoned that the country has seen improvement in the health services provision, including local capacity to conduct complex health procedures.
“This has limited the need for foreign intervention,” the report reads, further adding that patients seeking treatment abroad have in some instances been referred to unknown hospitals and specialists, putting the lives of Kenyans at risk.
“Moreover, on return there has not been a mechanism for post-treatment management of the patients, rendering already costly treatment unhelpful,” the MPs said.
Lawmakers conceded that the country’s healthcare system needs concrete policies for referrals, especially for treatment abroad.
This, they said, would need the improvement of services at country-level hospitals and firm referral guidelines to refer patients abroad.
Thousands of Kenyans travel abroad, largely India, South Africa, Germany and the UK, for specialised treatment, especially for terminal illnesses like cancer.
Health CS Mutahi Kagwe, during the opening of the Kenyatta University Teaching and Referral Hospital’s Imaging Centre, said there was no point in people travelling abroad for cancer treatment.
KUTRH has the capacity to manufacture radioactive isotopes for screening, diagnosis, and treatment of cancer following the acquisition of a cyclotron – the machine that makes isotopes.
Kenyatta National Hospital also opened its first telemedicine technology centre in March last year for interpretation of medical diagnosis.
Kagwe, at the official opening, said: “Very soon, we are going to have major operations being done in Kenya by our own doctors rather than taking patients overseas.”
He said at that time that CT scans will be interpreted locally instead of sending radiologists to different counties for local referrals.
The government has equally invested in a Sh63 billion medical equipment scheme to furnish county government hospitals with state-of-the-art machines for the diagnosis of diseases.
Edited by Kiilu Damaris
