The 8th ministerial stakeholder forum was held on 25th June 2018 at the Afya Annex, Kenyatta National Hospital from 11:00am – 3:00pm. The meeting brought together different health organizations including; Ministry of Health, Kenya Healthcare Federation, Faith based Organization and Kenya Private Sector Alliance, to discuss the Health Agenda.
The Cabinet Secretary for Health, Mrs. Sicily Kariuki chaired the meeting and in her opening remarks, she brought to light that the Presidential Round Table (PRT) meeting that took place in April 2018, showed that the H.E President Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta, wants concrete and tangible proposals, to show that the health sector is well planned.
She moreover said that the level of preparedness expected was not met. Therefore the next meeting must show that the health sector has planned and agreed upon tangible strategies.
“As Ministry of Health, we recognize the ambitious task ahead of us to achieve Universal Health Coverage and we know the requirements in terms of time and resources cannot come from government alone. Therefore, this is where the dialogue around Public – Private Partnership (PPP) is important and we should consider the future of PPPs in this sector. It is important that there is one side from the private sector. We have gazetted a Benefits Advisory Panel to come up with costs and packages. The role of the private sector will be stakeholder engagement. ”Mrs. Sicily Kariuki – Cabinet Secretary – Health.
Dr. Amit Thakker – Chairman Kenya Healthcare Federation Concurred with the CS where he emphasized that Inclusiveness is important as Ministerial Stakeholder Forum is made the epitome of Non-State Actors. “South Africa is in a similar policy position as Kenya where they want to achieve quality and affordable healthcare for all and they are very keen to learn from what we are doing.” Dr. Amit Thakker.
Dr. Elkana Onguti updated the attendees on the progress of Health Act 2017 Technical Working Groups, where he said that the roadmap for implementation of the Health Act 2017 will be produced in two weeks-time.
The Ministry of Health had asked the regulatory bodies to share their costs which seemed abit cumbersome because of the number of regulatory bodies. However, Dr. Thakker advised that there should be a comprehensive fee, which will be more efficient than paying each regulatory body and make it easier to operate in the counties. Moreover he emphasized that there are currently seven fees to be paid and this seems tedious.
“Multiplicity of the organizations in the Ministry of Health, requires different fees but this needs to be balanced with efficiency. The Health Act 2017, should address the element of time management through overarching regulatory bodies. We need to phase out operational bills to the exchequer so that we are only dealing with registration costs. However, this is not the only factors that are causing high costs in the sector and we need to be less inward thinking.” Mrs. Sicily Kariuki-Cabinet Secretary – Health. “We need to think of the cost of drugs and the cost of medical devices.” Anne Wamae
Dr. Louis Machogu – Pharmaceutical Society of Kenya, brought out that in the last Presidential Round Table, the issue of fraud was discussed which increases the cost of pharmaceuticals products. He however suggested that there is need to discuss self-regulation for instance in terms of price mark-up control and ensuring that ‘quaks’ are tracked down. “PSK Kenya would like to report on self-regulation in this meeting and take responsibility.” The CS applauded this where she said that the fraud is happening in genuine clinics there is need to deal with this, with a sense of urgency. The CS concluded by asking the attendees to revisit the PRT slides and pullout what is operational and strategic. “Let’s take out the operational tasks. Tell us the HOW rather than the WHAT.” Mrs. Sicily Kariuki-Cabinet Secretary – Health.
She emphasized that the next presentation should reflect on; bringing the most value in the service delivery space, the changes should bring more jobs and investments, reflect the opportunities that will be unlocked with this particular action and identify the assistance need from Ministry of Health to make the tasks concrete.
The meeting was well attended by a total 30 people from Ministry of Health, Kenya Healthcare Federation (Private Health Sector), Faith based Organizations and Kenya Private Sector Alliance.