While Kenyans watch with dismay the impact of the imposed transfer of citizens paying for health care from NHIF to SHIF the saddest part of the whole venture is that President Ruto’s close allies including his own adviser David Ndii are set to have huge financial benefits from the whole scheme.
It looks like a perfect mafia operation where those close to the Godfather collect their bounties in abundance and if some people die because of that it is their problem and nobody in the Ruto government cares.
The SHIF health care program will be run by Social Health Authority (SHA)and they have been awarded Sh. 104 billion to start the project. That money goes to a consortium of private companies including Safaricom, Apeiro Technologies and Konvergenz Network Solutions. They will run this huge money enterprise where close to 20 million Kenyans pay their hard earned money every month to get health coverage.
It so happens that Apeiro Technologies is owned by Judy Mwende Gatabaki, the wife of Ruto Chief Economic Adviser David Ndii and when he was confronted with critics who claimed it is a conflict of interest and looks like a huge corruption operation, here is David Ndii’s response.
“My wife has been engaged by IHC to set up their local operation. Apeiro Kenya is a project company, they have to rent office space and hire staff. What do you have a problem with?” Ndii responded to a critic.
Furthermore, Ndii said that his wife has worked with several global organizations before noting that it was all business.
“She was engaged after the award of the project. Where is the conflict? She worked for McKinsey before on government projects. Are you suggesting spouses can’t work for organizations that do business with Govt?”
“That’s your problem. They won a contract. They’ve engaged to do it. You call it corruption, we are ok with it,” added Ndii.
The Ministry of Health on Sunday, September 23, explained that Apeiro would handle the global patient care digitization as part of the consortium.
“To support the implementation of the UHC blueprint, the Ministry of Health has awarded a contract for the implementation of an Integrated Healthcare Information Technology System (“IHTS System”) to a consortium led by Safaricom PLC.
According to the Ministry, the move will ensure that every healthcare worker under the Universal Health Coverage (UHC) has the tools they need to serve Kenyans effectively.
Further, the ministry will also issue 5,000 laptops for the public healthcare workforce.
Additionally, the Safaricom-led consortium will ensure that healthcare workers get reliable internet connectivity and power backup systems countrywide. Medical Services PS Harry Kimtai had this to say:
“Apeiro is registered in Dubai. If it wants to do business in Kenya, it has to be registered locally”
Very quickly Apeiro Technologies was registered in Kenya on July 5, 2024 so that it could be part of the soon to come consortium at SHIF.
In other words Apeiro Ltd. knows nothing about the Kenya health system because they have never worked in the country but because they had to be part of the consortium they had to urgently register in Kenya.
That tells you all you need to know about how corrupt the whole scheme is and who the designated beneficiaries had to be.
It would appear that as soon as whole scheme to transfer Kenyans money in NHIF to the new group those in the know like David Ndii who as Ruto’s big man was in front of the whole system decided they had to get ready to grab some of that money.
Hence Apeiro company had to be registered in Kenya in a hurry so that it would be part of this new scheme. Everybody has to look after their families we understand that but doing so at a terrible cost to public health of millions of Kenyans is a complete unforgivable sin against humanity. No amount of arrogance from Ndii can change that reality.
David Ndii has learnt very quickly to join those government thieves he used to call ‘tenderpreneurs’ who live large on ‘wasteful public spending’. Quick learning is a good thing so I don’t blame the man for catching up very fast.
Kenyans also know that Safaricom which is a big part of Sh. 104 billion offer to run SHIF has Adil Arshed Khawaja as the Chairman of the Board of Directors and the guy is a very a close friend of President Ruto who often joins him in his state foreign trips.
He is also an advocate in the law firm of Dentons Hamilton and Mathews which is fighting right now to make sure that Adani Holdings which the Ruto government has given JKIA actually takes it. Besides, Ruto son, Nick Ruto is actually employed at the Khawaja law firm. Talk about family and friends swimming into public money.
So the big boys from the president to his economic adviser are putting in place a set of mechanisms to rope in that public money in SHIF and other health funds right into their pockets. Kenyans are not stupid and they can see what is going on with this rushed SHIF.
Also just weeks before the big money transfer President Ruto removed Dr. Timothy Olweny who had been doing the preparatory phase for SHIF since November 2023 and he was moved to be the board chair at the National Cancer Institute.
Dr. Olweny was replaced by Dr. Abdi Mohamed, who is a former board member and who is now all over the map with the CS for Health Deborah Barasa promoting SHIF and promising to pay money for those with severe chronic health conditions who have been denied medical treatment because their NHIF cards no longer works.
Barasa and co say they will pay the money for those very sick Kenyans who had to pay themselves and who do not have any cash to pay for their healthcare. What a great healthcare system these people are building for Kenyans!
One of the most glaring things about this consortium being given Sh. 104 billion of money from Kenyans for healthcare is that none of them will provide any actual healthcare to Kenyans but will only provide what they call digital assistance to healthcare providers. They will provide according to reports available lap top computers and internet access to health care providers.
That very sick dialysis survivor, James Kanyore, who was crying because he could not get the medical treatment he needed was not looking for a lap top or internet. He just wanted to get the treatment he usually gets from the hospital.
Now thanks to this new SHIF plan if the doctors cannot provide him with what he needs he will just turn to the lap top and take the computer tablets and his health needs will be solved. One of the biggest sources of theft of public money in Kenya today are all these companies being paid big money to provide digital healthcare networks as that will not provide medications and healthcare services.
These consortium will provide devices like computer tablets and PCs for healthcare personnel and secure mobile and fixed network infrastructure across public health facilities and a secure mobile and fixed network infrastructure across public health facilities. Someone needs to tell our leaders that computer tablets are actually not medical tablets that a sick person can take and get better in terms of their health.
AMREF in Kenya has excellent history of providing healthcare services to Kenyans using mobile health cars and trucks which can go anywhere in the country in the rural areas and urban poor areas and in their health care trucks they have all the equipment they need to test and diagnose people and offer treatment right at the health cars and at the home of their clients.
If the Kenya government was investing in government health trucks to provide mobile healthcare across the country every Kenyan will support that 100% because Kenyans often die because they cannot reach the hospitals and are too sick to walk there.
Also, such a project administered properly would reduce the congestion in our hospitals and health facilities. Why can’t anybody in government think of something as simple and as useful as that instead of this bloated digital nothingness to provide healthcare to Kenyans?
Where Do Kenyans Seek Medical Treatment?
In Kenya, there are about 15 medical doctors for every 100,000 persons, a ratio that is quite low. Due to this, people seek other alternative sources of health care. For this reason, over 70% of Kenyans rely on traditional healers as their primary source of health care.
According to a national household survey released by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics, 57 percent of the population seek treatment from traditional healers and herbalists compared to 28 percent who accessed from health facilities.
For those who seek treatment in the health facilities only 1 in 4 Kenyans have access to private hospitals or clinics while the majority of the population are reported to access treatment through public health government hospitals, dispensaries and health centres.
One of the most successful healthcare systems I have seen with my own eyes in Kenya was in 2018 in a health project created and financed by AMREF in Kenya which has offices everywhere and a training institution in Murang’a.
This project is where AMREF employed nurses and gave them motorbikes as well as testing kits and medications to go to peoples’ homes when they needed it. In the area where the team I saw was operating the biggest problem was malaria and children health problems. With the motor bikes the nurses and other healthcare workers would go and meet the sick at their homes and do tests on them after they call for help.
Malaria happens to be the easiest disease to detect with a good test plan. It is a matter of blood test to see if there is malaria in the blood system and the treatment is very simple. The truth about malaria is that it is a disease of time. If you have malaria and it is detected in time you get the right medication and it is gone in a few days. If malaria is in your blood for days without treatment it becomes a death threat and some of those infected with malaria would not even be able to make it to the hospital which is way off from where they live.
So these healthcare providers on motor bikes were doing a great job to keep people healthy. Then we have diseases like cholera and diarrhea and the problem with these kind of diseases is that when you travel long distances to go get to a healthcare facility you are spreading the germs everywhere and hundreds more people will get infected. If these kinds of diseases are treated at the client’s home not only is the client life saved but the possibilities of infecting a whole population is significantly minimized.
At some point our government including senior advisors to our presidents maybe able to think of some of these practical things for good healthcare services to Kenyans as opposed to how they can make money from bogus services to Kenyans who need health services.
