By Loraine Anyango.
The Department of Medical Services, Public Health, and Sanitation has a huge responsibility to provide accessible, affordable, and quality health care to the residents of Kisumu, it must generate revenue in its journey towards self-reliance, to ensure that its resources stay viable, and facility in charges and medical superintend from the seven sub-counties, met to review their financial performance against the Facility Improvement Fund (FIF) collections for the financial year 2022- 2023.
Though the department has realized improvement in its 1st to 3rd quarter collections, a lot more can and should be done to ensure that health interventions suffice to transform the health system in the county.
“We take up the challenge as we compare ourselves with what Nakuru and Mombasa are generating, we are looking at gaps and having conversations on how we can do better.” Dr. Gregory Ganda, Chief Executive Committee Member (CECM) Medical Services, public health, and Sanitation said this while addressing the heads at Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Teaching and Referral Hospital. (JOOTRH).
The Chief Officer Dr. Lusi Ajwang called on facilities to learn from each other, while commending Kombewa Sub County Hospital for having raised Ksh118 Million in the last three quarters, he also lauded Gita Sub County Hospital for being an example to be emulated by other level four facilities.
Under level two and three facilities, Mashambani in Muhorini is taking a lead in revenue collection by capitalizing on the Marwa scheme, Edu Afya, and Linda Mama Facilities. Last quarter 110,000 from Marwa and over 100,000 from NHIF.
While presenting the figures to the participants, Chief Accountant Mr. John Okise said that in the first three quarters, the department already generated Ksh 330 million shillings, against the target of annual 450 million shillings.
“With this trend, we hope to surpass our target with Ksh 50 million by the end of this financial year.” Mr. Okise said.
The sitting agreed on a way forward to continue to bridge the gap and seal loopholes in various facilities, ensuring that all revenue collected is received at the county pool and reimbursed back to the facility.
Service charges across all facilities will be standardized so that all hospitals charge the same amount for the same services in a bid to collect more revenue while the facility in charge will be expected to supervise revenue collections in their facilities
The management of all the health facilities is also expected to put in place waiver and exemption committees to be able to serve members of the public who completely cannot be able to pay for health care services.
