The TSC CEO explains why SHA refused to register more than 360,000 instructors for health insurance.
More than 360,000 instructors were turned down for enrollment by the Social Health Authority (SHA) because of the inadequate national infrastructure.
The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) CEO Nancy Macharia said that they were notified that the insurance company lacked the infrastructure needed to serve the teachers throughout the nation, which prevented them from successfully integrating them into SHA.
In his remarks to the National Assembly Education Committee, Macharia informed legislators that the Commission has always wanted to enroll instructors in a public insurance plan, but that this has not yet been feasible.
She stated that “last year, when we had problems with Minet, we wanted to move our teachers to SHA. We have always wanted to have our teachers under the national insurer, even during the NHIF days.”
“Before signing our contract with Minet for this last year, we met with SHA, and they informed us that they lacked sufficient buildings.” They informed the committee that, despite the need for Ksh.37 billion to enroll our teachers, they would still not be able to accept them this year.
Despite the Ksh.20 billion deal that TSC made with Minet to provide health insurance for instructors, the meeting was called in response to several grievances from teachers around the nation who are still struggling with inadequate medical care.
Despite being insured, a teacher was put in solitary confinement for three months because she couldn’t pay a hospital bill, according to a disturbing story told by Committee Chairman Julius Melly.
What sort of insurance policy is this? It’s a mixed breed without a head or tail. It’s a really humorous sort of insurance because you have a capitator, an administrator, a lead consortium, and an insurer. Melly advised, “You have to get out of this thing.”
Dick Maungu, the member of parliament for Luanda, argued that the existing centralized mechanism is inefficient and that teachers should be organized into clusters according to job group or region in order to expedite the approval process at health facilities.
“Given the sheer quantity of instructors and Bliss Health Care as the head capitator, it is challenging for them to manage approvals in a timely manner, which is where the delays occur. Maungu observed that the system is now overburdened, but why is it not possible for cluster teachers to narrow it down?
But Macharia pointed to insufficient funding as a significant impediment to delivering full medical insurance, and implored the committee to increase its funding.
“Our teachers must be fully covered in order to receive the best medical care. However, due to financial restrictions, we cannot do that. Since we frequently hold back, we also need to make timely payments to the consortium, she added.
