Ugenya MP Ochieng' faults NHIF for failing to serve Kenyans effectively

Ugenya Member of Parliament David Ochieng’ has termed the National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) as a corrupt institution due to its occasional failure to pay bills for individuals undergoing treatment in hospitals.

Speaking on DayBreak at Citizen TV, the MP exuded frustrations about the services NHIF renders to the people and preempted that he could scrap off the fund and replace it with an insurance service if he becomes head of state.

He projected a situation in the country where patients would not be asked to pay for medical treatments when admitted to hospitals. 

“NHIF is an extremely corrupt institution; if I was president I would scrap it and come up with a new national health system and service. I’ll probably reference what is happening in UK today, I will not have a fund I’ll just have a service that’s paid for by the tax payer,” he said.

“NHIF is like insurance, where you go and they commit that they will pay your bills, sometimes they don’t pay, sometimes they refuse to pay what is supposed to be paid. The kind of money Kenyans are paying for health services are extremely high but the services we are receiving are extremely pathetic,” Ochieng’ added.

The Ugenya MP accused the government of mismanaging the health sector and hoped that the Kenya Kwanza regime would resolve the issues touching on NHIF, NSSF and the health sector in general.

He added that funds received for health purpose should be remitted to health to prevent mismanagement of funds.