BY; Frontier Online Team

Mandera governor Ali Ibrahim Roba has said that his administration has made great strides and milestones in providing health care coverage to all the residents in Mandera county.

Speaking during the launching of the universal health care in Moi stadium in Mandera Town, Roba said that his administration has made a tremendous transformation in the provision of affordable health care to all the residents in Mandera county as enshrined in the constitution.

The governor underscored that the provision of health care in Mandera was made possible through the allocation of enough resources for the health sector and injecting professionalism in its management.

” The right to quality health care is enshrined in our constitution under the bill of rights and it is in this spirit that we have transformed our health sector from one of the worst before devolution to one of the best today,” said Roba.

Mr. Roba further noted that a large number of Kenyans pay for health care services out of their pockets and urged the government to reimburse monies for health care on time and said that his government has reimbursed monies for all the health facilities in Mandera county.

The county chief pleaded with the county residents to comply with all the Ministry of Health guidelines and protocols in a bid to fight the Covid-19 pandemic in the county that continues to ravaged across the country.

Mr. Roba said that his administration is doing all it can to combat and fight the Covid-19 in the county including educating and sensitizing the public to the dangers of the virus and also prioritizing the treatment of all severe cases for free.

“The Ministry of Health is doing all it can to educate the public on the dangers of Covid-19 while also treating all severe cases for free.” said the governor.

The county boss added that his administration has rolled out the Covid-19 vaccine across all the four health facilities in the county and appealed to all the local residents in Mandera county to get the jab so as to help the government in alleviating and mitigating the effects of the novel coronavirus in the county.

” Covid-19 vaccine is free and available across all the level 4 health facilities,” Roba said.

The governor exhorted the NHIF office in Mandera county to work closely with the county government so as to ensure the delivery of the best health services in the county.

Big Four agenda

In 2018, the country adopted UHC, one of the Big Four agendas for empowering the nation.

Four pilot counties, namely Isiolo, Kisumu, Machakos, and Nyeri were selected because, according to the government, they are characterized by a high incidence of both communicable and non-communicable diseases, maternal mortality, and road traffic injuries.

In 2019, then-Health Cabinet CS Sicily Kariuki said the programme had expanded health services to 3.2 million Kenyans in a period of 12 months.

Mr Kenyatta stated that his aspiration was to ensure Kenyans become able to use the essential services they need for their health and wellbeing through a single unified benefit package, minus the risk of a financial catastrophe, by 2022.

This was to be done in pursuance of the human right to health as guided by the 58th World Health Organization (WHO) World Health Assembly held in 2005, which urged member countries to aim to provide universally accessible health care to all members of the population based on the principles of equity and solidarity.

The human right to health as enshrined in Kenya’s Constitution 2010 is part of the development agenda outlined in Vision 2030.

The model adopted is a two-phase medium-term approach, which, in the first phase, is expected to abolish all user fees at the primary level (local health centres) and the secondary level (county referral) hospitals.

The second phase is the rollout of a social health insurance scheme.

The funding comes primarily from the central government budget, which from the word go, set aside between Sh4.4 billion and Sh4.9 billion for UHC.

The government considered various sources of funding, such as taxes and reallocation of funding from other budget areas.