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Private hospitals offering dialysis services are now threatening to lock out National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) due to non-remittance of rebates by the latter over the last six months.

The Kenya Renal Association (KRA) has written to NHIF urging it to address the matter urgently to forestall a possible crisis in the health sector. The association says several facilities have already closed shop due to financial crisis precipitated by NHIF’s failure to refund them.

“We are deeply concerned about the ongoing issue of non-payment for services rendered by our haemodialysis units. This situation, if not addressed promptly, threatens to cause the closure of many smaller units and eventually the larger ones,” says a letter by Dr John Ngigi, the KRA chairman.

Dr Ngigi says the crisis is likely to affect more than 4000 patients across the country who seek dialysis services in private hospitals. Apparently, there are at least 6, 500 kidney patients in the country on dialysis.

The association says NHIF has only been remitting between five and 20 per cent of the refunds to hospitals, thereby frustrating their operations.

“The consequences of this situation are dire. Private units unable to withstand these constraints are facing closure, which will result in a surge of patients flocking to the already overwhelmed government units or those few surviving private ones,” Dr Ngigi says.

The Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH) based nephrologist goes on to warn that should private facilities offering dialysis close down or turn away NHIF card holders, thousands of patients are likely to suffer.

“We risk returning to the dark days when patients waited weeks for dialysis, often receiving treatment only once a week and with many losing their lives in the process,” Dr Ngigi warns.

But when contacted, NHIF chief executive Dr Samson Kuhora said he could not comment on the issue since he had not yet seen the letter from KRA.

“Let make an informed comment after I have seen the letter. But at the moment, I haven’t seen the letter and neither aware of any problem facing the health facilities as a result of alleged non-payment by NHIF,” Dr Kuhora told People Daily

As per the 2022 data from KRA, Kenya has 217 haemodialysis units comprising 55 public units, translating to 25 per cent, 245 private units translating to 67 per cent, and 17 faith-based units eight per cent.