Thursday, January 16, 2025 – Health Cabinet Secretary Deborah Barasa and her officials were forced to learn a bitter lesson yesterday.
This is after patients took them
hostage at their own event over the endemic failures of the new health scheme
under the Social Health Authority (SHA).
Deborah and ministry staff had
organized a presser to update Kenyans on the Universal Health Coverage uptake in Nairobi
before hell broke loose.
The patients who had been keenly
waiting for an opportunity with the health officials disrupted the press
briefing, demanding answers over uncertainties and bureaucracies they have been
subjected to over the use of the Social Health Insurance Fund (SHIF).
The Patients had travelled from
the Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH) and openly protested in the full glare of
the cameras to Barasa over the Social Health Authority (SHA) system failure.
Additionally, the patients,
while shouting, expressed that their attempts to have their issues addressed
were ignored by everyone in the chain of command, who instead redirected them
to various offices, leaving them with no hope of assistance.
As fate would have it, the
patients maximised the opportunity to vent their frustrations to the CS who was
at the time forced to patiently sit and listen to them.
''We are not the only ones who
have come, several others are waiting for us at the gate. We have walked into
the offices of NHIF, the ICT department and all other offices on these floors.
They are not helping us,'' shouted a visibly angered patient.
''They have resorted to just
making us go in circles knowing very well that if you go to a certain office
where they have referred you, then there is no amount of help you would get,''
added another patient, who was holding her baby.
The patients detailed to the CS that at some point, some of the people who had been frustrating them referred them to Principal Secretary of Medical Services Harry Kimtai.
The Kenyan DAILY POST.
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