The National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF) has once again been on the spot for the wrong reasons.

While the national health insurer has been widely applauded, particularly in the rural areas where thousands of poor folks have either fully benefitted or had their hospital bills subsidised, the scheme has in the recent past been shrouded in controversy and confusion.

Reports from hospitals across the country have indicated cases of thousands of patients with NHIF cards having been turned away from the facilities due to non-remittance of funds by the insurer. Several hospitals have declared patients with NHIF cards will not be served until further notice and until they receive a substantial amount of money from the government agency.

NHIF on the other hand, has turned the tables on the government, which it has accused of failing to remit the billions of shillings deducted from civil servants every month. The national insurer has also pointed fingers at some private facilities for allegedly colluding with patients to bill it for services not rendered.

There have also been accusations of some private facilities inflating patients’ bills in an unbridled thirst to pilfer from the national insurer.

Other unconfirmed reports indicate both the national and county governments have been diverting more than Sh20 billion annually from NHIF to private insurance companies that are making money instead of giving the tenders to the national health insurer.

As patients, some of them in critical conditions, remain stranded, the government has seemingly remained gleeful, playing a ping-pong game on a matter of such grave national importance.

Last week private hospitals appealed to NHIF to release payments to enable them to serve patients. Through the Kenya Association of Private Hospitals, the facilities said the situation was unsustainable for most hospitals and the only way to save them was to release payment.

Amid the pleas and agonies from patients, the Ministry of Health stunned the nation with revelations the government is too broke to remit the monies deducted from civil servants to NHIF. Cabinet Secretary Susan Nakhumicha also revealed that currently, NHIF owed hospitals close to Sh20 billion.