The Senate and the Council of Governors will not allow the national government to take back the health function under the Universal Health Coverage.
Senators and the CoG are awake to such plans, it was disclosed at the Kenya Health Summit, which ended yesterday.
Senate Health Committee chairman Michael Mbito said Kenyans have experienced tremendous improvement in health services since devolution.
"Senate will stop any attempt to undermine devolution and devolution in health," Senator Mbito said.
"We are interested in an outcome that protects devolved services. The Senate is ready to engage openly on any issues facing devolved healthcare."
The two-day summit discussed how the UHC will be rolled out at the end of the year. It was attended by senators, MPs and representatives of the Ministry of Health and county governments.
CoG chair Wycliffe Oparanya said health services have improved tremendously in the past six years of devolution compared to 50 years when the services were run from Nairobi.
"We have witnessed one success after another in all 47 county governments on the increased number of and reduction in the distances to the nearest health facility," he said in a speech read by Kisii Governor James Ongwae.
The Kakamega governor said counties were ready for UHC and some had started employing more community health workers.
"Counties have incrementally invested in strengthening primary health care and revamping community health services through legislation and allocation of the necessary resources," he said.
The conference was officially opened on Wednesday by Health Cabinet Secretary Sicily Kariuki who called for greater cooperation between the two levels of government.
"Both national and county governments have defined roles that are critical and symbiotic in the delivery of health services," she said.
Kariuki called for frank discussions between the two levels of government to ensure a smooth rollout of the national UHC by President Uhuru Kenyatta at the end of the year.
National Assembly Health committee chair Sabina Chege differed with the senators and governors and said her committee preferred the hiring of health workers in Nairobi.
"We will bring to Parliament a sessional paper from this conference. But we support centralized human resources," Chege said.
Most health workers support the creation of a National Health Service Commission to hire, deploy and handle the remuneration of all workers.
The agency will be similar to the Teachers Service Commission.
Kenya’s health sector has been centralized since 1963, with power concentrated in Nairobi.
Nairobi-based think-tank KPMG Africa compares health before and after devolution in its recent report, 'Devolution of healthcare services in Kenya: Lessons learned from other countries'.
The report shows rapid gains after devolution and notes that improvements in health were marginal before 2010 and certain indicators even worsened.
For instance, maternal mortality and neonatal mortality rates had reduced substantially since 2008.
