The Ministry of Health has given a status update on the extent of registration by Kenyans to the Social Health Authority since the transition from the National Health Insurance Fund on October 1.
SHA is the authority mandated to manage the new Social Health Insurance Fund (SHIF) in a significant policy shift that intends to provide health insurance cover to over 50 million Kenyans up from the 10 million that were under NHIF.
The shift is a step toward Universal Health Coverage (UHC) and all Kenyan citizens and their dependents must register as SHA members to reap the benefits of SHIF.
The transition was greeted with scepticism, confusion and system failure with patients claiming they were being asked to pay out of pocket, but the government said the teething problems have since been resolved and SHIF is now working seamlessly.
The Ministry of Health has continued to encourage Kenyans to register with SHA in an ongoing exercise that’s being spearheaded by Community Health Promoters at the county and ward level.
On
Wednesday, the ministry issued a status update indicating the top five counties
with the highest number of people who have so far enlisted and the bottom five counties
with the least percentage of registered populations.
From the data, Central Kenya counties appear to be ahead of the other regions with four counties in the region making it to the top five list.
Leading the pack is Nyeri county with 155,826 registered individuals out a targeted population of 759,164, translating to 20.5 per cent of registered population.
Kirinyaga county come second with 123,600 registered people out of 610,411 targeted population translating to 20.3 per cent of registered population.
Next is Kiambu county with 470,379 out of a targeted population of 2,417,735 (19.5 per cent).
Lamu county is fourth with 26,275 registered population out of a target of 143,920 (18.3 per cent).
Embu county, in fifth place, has a similar number of registered population (18.3 per cent) but with more registered individuals (111,113) out of a targeted population of 608,599.
The bottom five counties all lie within the Arid and Semi Arid Land (ASAL) areas.
These are Garissa, Turkana, Mandera, Wajir and West Pokot.
Garissa has the least registered population of 2.3 per cent, this being 20,624 out of a targeted population of 905,000.
Turkana follows with 3 per cent registered population of 27,840 out of a target of 926,976.
Mandera has so far registered 3.4 per cent of its population at 29,529 out of a targeted population of 867,457 individuals.
Wajir county has registered 32,087 people translating to 4.1 per cent of the total targeted population of 781,263 people.
West Pokot has 4.3 per cent of its population registered on SHA thus far with 26,650 people out of 621,241 target population having signed up.