CEO addresses ex-NHIF workers panic over shift to SHA

Former employees of the obsolete National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) are not going to have it easy, having now been taken over by the Public Service Commission (PSC). For most, NHIF is the only place they knew as home.

Some of their concerns and constant inquiries since the engagement they had with NHIF for decades ended in mid-November last year, reflect this.

Meanwhile as they serve under the Social Health Authority (SHA), which is currently facing key challenges in its first three months of transition, the employees’ comfort working in their familiar grounds is only guaranteed up to June this year.

“Yeah, this was something that they keep on asking,” said acting Chief Executive Officer of the Authority, Robert Ingasira, assuring the staff of continued earnings.

However, he observed that the main reason the employees are apprehensive is that most of them had only known one employer, NHIF.

Redeployment

“So, when such changes come in, it’s bound to bring some tension here and there,” he noted.

According to the CEO, this has since been clarified and each member of staff has a letter informing them that they have been taken over by the PSC, but redeployed to SHA for six months.

However, also this is the period within which SHA will have decided whether it is absorbing them or surrendering them to the PSC.

“All of them came back to SHA for an initial period of six months. Now within this period, SHA is supposed to do a suitability test and take the ones who meet their requirements,” the CEO explained further.

He added that those who will not fit in the structure will be redeployed to public service.

“There is no need for anyone to worry, everyone will be absorbed either here or in the public service,” Ingasira added.