Only 1.4 million Kenyans from the informal sector are contributing to the Social Health Insurance Fund (SHIF), Health Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale (pictured) has said.

Responding to questions from MPs, Duale revealed that in the formal sector 4.9 million people are paying their contributions, bringing the total number of those contributing to 5.6 million.

These members, he said, can access free primary healthcare services and additional services (mostly inpatient) in Level 4-Level 6 facilities.

Those registered Under Primary Health care (PHC) and who are able to access free healthcare at Level 2 to Level 4 facilities and in contracted private and faith-based are three million with the daily average registration being Sh45,000 per day.

According to documents presented to MPs, as at April 15th, a total of 4,386,921 Kenyans had successfully completed with those making contributions being 20,000 per day with the average contribution currently being Sh 590.

Said Duale: “These members do not carry the burden of the 21,304,688 registered members as PHC services are paid by the government and not the member contributions. Therefore, the Fund is sustainable and is able to pay for all the gazetted benefits.”

In terms of payment under PHC, Duale said in the government facilities the State has paid out Sh2.1 billion to 4744 facilities, faith based organisations (Sh423.8 million) to 513 facilities while private hospitals fetched Sh4.2 billion from 7802 facilities.

He added: “Payment to SHIF grants Kenyans additional benefits (mostly inpatient services) under SHA. These benefits kick in immediately unlike NHIF where there was a waiting period of up to 6 months after payment.”

The low contributions to SHIF come hardly a month after various hospitals claimed the fund will collapse in the next 12 months if the challenges affecting its implementaare not addressed.

The hospitals under the Kenya Healthcare Federation (KHF), Rural Urban Private Hospital Association (Rupha), Kenya Association of Private Hospitals (KAPH) and the Faith-Based Hospitals told lawmakers that if the funding to the primary health care fund that takes care of outpatient services, where 91 per cent of all Kenyans are, is not enhanced then the fund will not be sustainable.

The hospitals further told lawmakers that the issues facing the contributions being made by those in the informal sector ought to be addressed since only a handful of them are contributing to the fund.

Said KHF chairman Kanyenje Gakombe: “If we do not address how non salaried people should make their contributions because they only pay when they fall sick, this SHIF will become very untenable.”

The new revelations came on the day Duale disclosed that out of the 12 million members who were in the defunct National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF) database 3 million Kenyans were found to have fake records including their biometric.

He explained that the government was keen on having all Kenyans registered in order to improve the accuracy and integrity of members’ data.