The National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF) is a corrupt institution that collects over Ksh3 billion per month.
Most of these monies ends up in the pockets of senior management who prefer to get over 500,000 in per diems for a two-day non-issue conference.
It is now emerging that the health insurer owes health institutions run by the Catholic Church in Kenya nearly Ksh1.9 billion in unpaid medical arrears.
The Daily Nation reports that the unpaid amount has accumulated in 100 health facilities.
Faith-based churches provide 40 percent of health services in Kenya and serve an important role in the whole health coverage.
Hospitals linked to the Catholic Church say NHIF owes more than Ksh1.3 billion with the unpaid claims going back to 2017.
Chairman Kenya Conference of Catholic Bishops Philip Anyolo said that the church is deeply concerned about the growing debt of NHIF to be paid to its health institutions across the country.
“In fact many of our health facilities have been experiencing a serious crisis of NHIF non-payments to a point where it is difficult to procure medicine or pay salaries,” said Rev Anyolo.
Speaking in Nairobi where he was also flanked by other catholic bishops, Rev Anyolo said that if the situation persists, it threatens to cripple important services and therefore deny the public the health care due to them as a right.
“After raising this issue and seeking urgent intervention of the government, we are hopeful a solution will be found as soon as possible,” Rev Anyolo
NHIF Scandals
NHIF has been exposed to be funding expensive treatment of rich Kenyans abroad at the expense of others.
In 2018, former CEO who funded UhuRuto’s campaign using money looted from NHIF coffers was sacked and replaced with Nicodemus Odongo who is still in an acting capacity.
The board led by Ms. Hannah Muriithi is very corrupt and are continuing the looting-legacy of Geofrey Mwangi only surviving because they fired the CEO who was the face of corruption,
The truth of the matter is that the board that was retained is the most corrupt.
Hannah was once grilled by DCI, a raid at her house was called off, because she is a ‘mtu wetu’, to the topmost bosses of the country.
She is still at NHIF to steal money for 2022 campaigns.
The board and senior managers at NHIF own and operate clinics which they use to siphon billions of shillings from the govt agency.
The board has watched, without doing anything as graft take over the fund. NHIF, Has been a cash-cow for a few individuals and the bosses at the helm have made it their habit to dance on poor Kenyans graves, as corruption becomes cancer in this country.
According to our sources, top NHIF bosses and board members have formed shell companies that they are using to award themselves tenders and loot it to the ground despite president Uhuru Kenyatta, the state-house joker claiming that universal health-care is one of his big four agenda.
READ:
- NHIF Managers Steal Ksh38 Million, Hide Evidence
- How NHIF Fleeces The Poor To Serve The Rich
- NHIF Untouchable: Corrupt Hannah Muriithi And The Board Stay On Amid Scandals
Slow Payments
The matter if payments to hospitals owned by churches has been raised numerous times but the board and senior NHIF management only known one language; to loot.
Maybe Ms. Hannah Muriithi wants a cut from the money that she is supposed to pay churches, because this is what one source intimated to be happening.
Some foreign hospitals have unofficial contracts with NHIF, they charge exorbitantly and then split the loot with NHIF senior management. Some private in hospitals in Kenya do this too.
The hospitals also complain about the lengthy process that NHIF takes to accredit their centres.
Similar complaints and mounting unpaid claims have been registered by hospitals under the protestant umbrella Christian Health Association of Kenya (CHAK).
Dr Samuel Mwenda Rukungu, the General-Secretary of CHAK, under which hospitals like Kijabe, Tenwek and Tumutumu fall, said that the facilities had been working well with NHIF “until sometimes last year when the claims have been posing a challenge”
Ms Jecinta Mutegi, National Executive Secretary for the Catholic Health Commission of Kenya said that their referral facilities — of level four and above — were most affected.
“Suppliers have refused to give us commodities anymore, we are unable to pay salaries,” Ms Mutegi told the Business Daily.
She said Mater Hospital is owed Sh350million, Our Lady of Lords Hospital in Mwea (Sh120m) and Consolata Hospital Mathari in Nyeri Sh110 million while North Kinangop Catholic claims amount to Sh81m.
An electronic system of lodging claims was adopted following scandals that rocked the national insurer, but is appears the measure meant to tame runaway corruption has complicated the claims process.
The system, a hospital director in Nyeri said, fails to capture the claims when they are keyed in.
Another hospital director said that they have to travel to the branches to feed the details, and when they call the NHIF officials to come to the hospitals to verify some of the major surgery claims as is the standard procedure, the officials ask for vehicles to transport them to the facilities.
The hospital administrators said that after complaining a lot, NHIF gives them hush money — as little as Sh10million — and the push and pull starts again
“NHIF has credit contracts with individual hospitals and we pay them on a regular basis. We need to confirm the status since each hospital has a separate contract for the credit work they do with NHIF,” said NHIF in a statement in May.
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