Health

Counties stripped of management role in Sh4bn free maternity plan

mothers

Mothers nurse their babies at a nursery in Coast General Hospital, Maternity Wing, last year. PHOTO | KEVIN ODIT

Counties have been stripped of the role of managing the Sh4.2 billion free maternity services.

President Uhuru Kenyatta on Tuesday announced that the National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF) is the new manager of the programme, which was launched three years ago.

This, Mr Kenyatta said, is meant to ensure efficiency as the services have been expanded to faith-based facilities and select private hospitals under a programme dubbed Linda Mama, Boresha Jamii.

“NHIF is now delegated to manage the programme to ensure efficiency in processing of payments and to strengthen its role in healthcare financing,” he said.

Mr Kenyatta said this in a statement during the launch of the expanded free national maternal programme at KICC, Nairobi.

He said that an additional Sh1.2 billion had been added to the programme by donors, bringing the total to Sh5.4 billion to reach a wider population of expectant mothers.

The Council of Governors (CoG) had in August opposed the plan to transfer the free maternity funds to the NHIF.

The governors had earlier accused the national government of failing to involve them in the process, saying the new directive would make access to the programme by mothers bureaucratic.

According to the Ministry of Health, the government will, starting this financial year, spend Sh6,000 on every expectant woman as annual premium payable to the NHIF.

“We will be paying Sh500 monthly for every pregnant woman as NHIF contributions,” said Health secretary Cleopa Mailu.

Dr Mailu said that once an expectant woman is issued with the free NHIF card, the husbands and children will also enjoy other benefits from the national insurer.

Wycliffe Oparanya, the CoG Finance Committee chairman, had asked the National Treasury to remit the funds to counties in line with the Constitution, which devolved government health services.

“NHIF has in the recent past been riddled with allegations of mismanagement of funds and boardroom wars, something that we fear will affect the free maternity programme,” said Mr Oparanya. “Transferring the programme to the NHIF will also mean all mothers have to contend with the bureaucracies of having to register with the scheme to access the services.”

The management of the scheme has been shrouded in controversy with governors accusing the national government of delaying release of funds and undermining devolution.

Skilled deliveries

NHIF chairman Mohamud Ali said that the fund had been politically interfered with in the past.

“This is not the NHIF of yester-years, we want to run a professional body to ensure professional services to Kenyans,” said Mr Ali.

“This free maternity programme will be run professionally and mothers will get free NHIF cards through which every member of their family will enjoy in-patient and out-patient benefits.”

Mr Kenyatta said that the Sh9 billion spent so far on the programme was not in vain.

“We have seen a number of skilled deliveries continue to rise with public health facilities handling over one million deliveries which is more than double the 460,000 at the beginning of the programme.”

The scheme is estimated to prevent over 2,000 women and 30,000 child deaths annually.