Phyllis Muhere felt relieved as she left Kenyatta National Hospital last month, cradling her newborn son. Eager to return home to Kawangware, an informal settlement on the outskirts of Nairobi, in Kenya, Muhere’s joy was tempered by the frustrating delay she experienced due to a transition to a new national health insurance program.
Muhere had not registered for Kenya’s new Social Health Insurance Fund, or SHIF, at the time of her delivery resulting in a four-day delay before she was released from the hospital. She said many patients were struggling with the registration.
In Kenya, health insurance is available through both government and private providers. In a bid to achieve universal health coverage, the government launched SHIF last month, replacing the National Health Insurance Fund — NHIF — which had been in place for over 50 years.
About the author
Anthony Langat
Anthony Langat is a Kenya-based Devex Contributing Reporter whose work centers on environment, climate change, health, and security. He was part of an International Consortium of Investigative Journalism’s multi-award winning 2015 investigation which unearthed the World Bank’s complacence in the evictions of indigenous people across the world. He has five years’ experience in development and investigative reporting and has been published by Al Jazeera, Mongabay, Us News & World Report, Equal Times, News Deeply, Thomson Reuters Foundation, and Devex among others.
