• KHF will facilitate far-reaching reforms for the benefit of all healthcare stakeholders.
• Ruto promised to reform the National Health Insurance Fund to make it a social health insurance provider
The Kenya Healthcare Federation (KHF) has welcomed proposals on the health sector outlined by President William Ruto in his inauguration speech.
Through its Chairperson Kanyenje Gakombe, KHF said Ruto’s commitments will provide further impetus to transform healthcare agencies such as the National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF), and Kenya Medical Supplies Authority (KEMSA) which have recently commenced commendable reform efforts.
"KHF welcomes the commitment to reform healthcare financing and provision. Reforms at the NHIF, KEMSA and integration of robust health information technology systems as promised by President Ruto is sweet music to our ears," she stated in a statement
In his speech on Tuesday, President Ruto reiterated that his government's health plan is founded on fundamental reforms in how healthcare is financed.
"We shall reform the National Health Insurance Fund to make it a social health insurance provider, improve procurement of medical supplies, deploy an integrated state-of-the-art health information system and most importantly, provide adequate human resources at all levels. Contributions will be graduated and will now be based on income," he said.
KHF CEO Anastasia Nyalita said they will facilitate far-reaching reforms for the benefit of all healthcare stakeholders.
According to Nyalita, the Integration of information systems will play a key role in advancing the national management efforts by providing quality visibility and traceable datasets.
She noted that such integration of information systems will also assist in providing health service delivery integrity at the health commodities procurement, finance, quality assurance, and record management levels.
"At KHF, we shall be at hand to support the reform endeavours and provide technical support as necessary as the delivery of quality healthcare service remains our driving force as a Federation," Nyalita added.
During his campaign, Ruto said his government will tailor the payment of NHIF premiums to households in scenarios where a husband and wife are both working.
He said the measure was part of his plan to save poor families from paying too much compared to those earning huge figures in salaries.
"If both a wife and the husband are working today, they pay double. So we have said that we are going to zero it around households so that every household pays once," he said.