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A parliamentary committee was taken by surprise yesterday when it was revealed that one of the eight medical facilities implicated in the National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) scandal lacks a qualified dentist, despite being enlisted to provide dental services as part of its comprehensive package.

Jekim Medical Centre, in Meru county, admitted that despite being contracted to offer dental services by NHIF, they only have a Community Oral Health officer and a dental assistant, who occasionally assists with dental procedures.

Wendy Marete, the administrator at Jekim Medical Centre, made this revelation during a hearing before the National Assembly committee on Health conducting a public inquiry into the financial misappropriations and other malpractices at the NHIF yesterday.

“We have a community oral health officer and a dental assistant, along with a nurse who occasionally assists the dentist during procedures,” said Marete.

This prompted Endebess MP Robert Pukose who chairs the committee, to question the terminology used, saying, “You refer to someone as a dental assistant officer, yet we don’t have that classification in the dental profession.”

Defrauding allegations

The health facility also fought allegations of defrauding NHIF of a total of Sh58 million through the use of incorrect Internal Classification of Diseases (ICD) codes.

In the NHIF audit report, it was discovered that your facility had submitted claims using incorrect Internal Classification of Diseases codes. Specifically, 58 claims amounting to 58 million were found to have used incorrect ICDS.’