Thursday, October 17, 2024 – Treasury Cabinet Secretary John Mbadi has stated that the government of President William Ruto won’t abolish the Social Health
Insurance Fund (SHIF).
This is even as the majority of
Kenyans urged the government to scrap the Social Health Authority (SHA) over
challenges in accessing healthcare.
Speaking during an interview,
Mbadi clarified that the challenges witnessed during the transition from the
National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) to SHA were minimal to warrant an
overhaul of the new health insurance system.
CS Mbadi while stressing his
stance on the matter, disclosed that the solution to the current crisis within
the health sector was not on overhauling the whole system but rather correcting
the glitches faced during the implementation of the health scheme.
“Kenyans have been questioning
why we have SHA and not NHIF, the latter was not working, Kenyans must
understand that if a system is not working, we get a system that is working, it
may have challenges from the beginning but that does not mean we get back to a system
that does not work,” CS Mbadi stated.
He further noted that exercising
patience on the matter would be more prudent noting that the government was
working to restore normalcy by correcting the hitches.
CS Mbadi went ahead to compare
Kenyans to Lot’s wife, a figure in the bible whom the book of Genesis narrates
turned into a pillar of salt after looking back at the destruction of Sodom and
Gomorrah as her family was fleeing.
“The problem with us is that if
we attempt to get something to work then we have challenges, instead of
correcting challenges and moving forward, we tend to go back,” CS Mbadi
commented.
“Kenyans tend to think like
Lot’s wife who was told not to look back but she looked back and remained at
the same place. So we need to be looking forward. If SHA has challenges, we
need to deal with these challenges,” the CS added.
The Kenyan DAILY POST