The National Hospital Insurance Fund, the premier insurer of the poor millions that have the luxury of a private medical cover, is in a deep financial hole.
Last week, Health Cabinet Secretary Susan Wafula made a desperate public appeal to Treasury mandarins to save NHIF by paying out the Sh20 billion arrears required to keep the health parastatal afloat.
Within days of her statement, private hospitals in rural areas, where the NHIF is needed most, started turning away patients.
Big or small, all hospitals that have a contract with the NHIF and that treat patients cannot be expected to provide services for free.
The Treasury and NHIF bosses must move with speed and resolve the funding mess because with each day that passes, hundreds of thousands whose treatments are deferred, could be exposed to more life threatening situations.
What’s more, the early symptoms that patients are likely to ignore might develop into major health conditions as a result.
The health of a nation is matter of life and death and must be treated with the urgency that it deserves.
The only reason the arrears was left to balloon to Sh20 billion must be because Treasury bureaucrats, who enjoy more lavish private medical insurance, are too comfortable in the knowledge that no one can get them sacked or reprimanded even if they sleep on their jobs.
Quote of the day: "The importance of money flows from it being a link between the present and the future."
John Maynard Keynes The English economist was born on June 5, 1883
