The suffering of teachers seeking medical services is set to persist because of the incapacity and 'exorbitant' insurance cover pricing by the Social Health Authority (SHA), Teachers Service Commission (TSC) disclosed yesterday.
At the same time, Parliament now wants TSC to terminate its contract with Minet Insurance brokers and a consortium of underwriters for the provision of medical cover services to teachers, terming the arrangement an "amorphous structure".
A parliamentary team yesterday heard that TSC settled on renewing the contract for the provision of a comprehensive teachers' medical cover with Minet Kenya Insurance brokers Ltd, which is currently grappling with operational challenges that have hindered teachers' access to healthcare, due to SHA's lack of structures to accommodate and cover the huge number of teachers. TSC Chief Executive Officer Nancy Macharia submitted before the National Assembly Education Committee that the Commission had approached SHA for the provision of a medical scheme to teachers but the authority confessed to having inefficient structures to undertake the venture. Macharia also revealed that SHA was demanding Sh37 billion to onboard teachers to its medical scheme, which was a far cry from the current Sh20 billion allocated towards the scheme. "Last year, we did have a meeting with SHA but they said they did not have the structures to undertake the scheme.
They were also asking for Sh37 billion to onboard teachers to SHA but even then they said they were not ready to take up the teachers this year, "said Macharia. She explained that TSC had entered into a three-year contract with Minet in 2015 and had tendered for it twice to date, but at some point sought to terminate the same following complaints from teachers over delayed insurance payment approvals, prohibitive pre-authorisation requirements at health facilities and teachers who were seeking treatment at hospitals being turned away. To this end, she said, the Commission had sought to place teachers in a public medical scheme. "We have only tendered for this scheme under Minet Insurance twice.
