Nairobi — With myriads of challenges facing the health sector including corruption and ineffective service delivery, Health nominee Debra Barasa now seeks a consultative approach to address the concerns grappling the sector.
Barasa who boasts of an 18-year experience in public health profession told MPs before the National Assembly Appointments Committee during her vetting consultation with stakeholders including professionals and community will streamline the sector.
She told the house team chaired by National Assembly Speaker Moses Wetangula it would be futile to manage the critical health sector through a 'one-man' show approach.
"From a management perspective its always consultative it's not a one man show. We have different system that have been in operation and they understand the situation. The focus will be now filling the gaps," Barasa told MPs.
MPs raised concerns on the nominee's leadership skills to ensure seamless transition from National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) to Social Health Authority(SHA) as the rollout of the plan scheduled for July 1 was postponed to October.
The Transition Committee, which is tasked with facilitating the shift, suggested that the NHIF should continue while SHA is launched in phases because some key components that will support the new health authority were not ready.
"Kenyans need to own SHA and we need to embrace community feedback. The reason we are having the issues of transion is because we didn't have robust community consultation as well as stakeholders including the county," she stated.
Majority Leader Kimani Ichungwa queried how the health nominee will curtail graft in the national health insurance scheme which previously has been embezzled by a cartels in the defunct NHIF who collude with hospitals.
"What do you intend to do to address corruption within NHIF where staff within the body collude with medical care providers include faith based ones and we have seen the exposes in the media," he said.
On the critical concerns of addressing graft, the health nominee opined that strengthening of current health system through digitization by limiting human interaction is necessary.
"Having looked at SHIF what are the measures to be in put in place to ensure we avoid the situation of collusion and graft we leverage on technology so as to bring down the level of cost of healthcare," Barasa stated.
"Again, a consultative approach by involving all the stakeholders by conducting a situation analysis. We need to strengthen the system in the use by digitizing them to avoid the human interaction," she added.
Barasa explained that the interference in the rollout of SHA is due to lack of robust public participation which has led to legal cases derailed the smooth transition to the new healthcare scheme.
"For primary gaps and challenges I will focus on consultative approach by working closely with stakeholders, National Treasury and community. They should be made aware and own it because if they don't do it will interfere with implementation," she avvered.
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Minority Leader Junet Mohammed questioned the nominee on the measures she will institute to ensure health is fully devolved which has been a tug of war between the national government and devolved units.
"We don't have a seamless transfer between the national and county level. How do you intend to ensure that health is devolved and resources are devolved so that people can get services?" Mohammed posed.
Barasa promised to initiate dialogue with the health stakeholders in the national and county governments to ensure health is fully devolved despite the politics surrounding the matter.
"I believe we need to involve the national and county team to have an open dialogue on the weakness and threats and come up with priority interventions. We see where the mandate of national and county level stop," she stated.
