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By Standard Team
Kenya: If you are a mother then you understand the joys, thrills, triumphs and even the tears of having a baby.
This is perhaps why women got a reprieve as Jubilee Coalition campaign promise of implementing free maternal healthcare became effective on June 1 when President Uhuru Kenyatta gave a directive to waive all fees.
And with that presidential decree, mothers who gave birth and paid any fee in public health facilities on the day Uhuru gave the directive will be refunded with immediate effect. Health Cabinet Secretary James Macharia said that in implementing the directive, all mothers will not be charged for maternal services.
“We are asking all mothers who might have paid any maternal fees in public health institutions to go back there and be refunded from the day the President gave the directive,” said Macharia on his maiden tour of Pumwani Maternity Hospital.
Macharia said that Sh1 billion had already been factored in the Budget for the realisation of the free maternal provision of healthcare within the first 100 days.
No charges
In addition, a total of Sh8 billion will be used for the same programme in the next financial year, beginning today. He reiterated that no charges will be slapped on mothers giving birth whether through normal delivery or caesarean section in any public health facility.
Macharia had to first inspect Pumwani in implementing Uhuru’s directive since it is the biggest and largest maternal hospital in East and Central Africa. Accompanying him were Nairobi Governor Evans Kidero, Director of Medical Services Francis Kimani and County Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr Robert Ayisi, among others.
However, Governor Kidero admits there are a number of challenges that need to be addressed if full implementation of the free maternal healthcare is to be realised. Top on the list is increasing the number of operation theatres from the current two to between six and seven to cater for the upsurge of women seeking to deliver at the facility.
The hospital has in the past been riddled with graft, financial crises, lack of supplies, moral and ethical decadence, and absenteeism amongst staff, causing more than approximately 1,000 infant deaths in the past two years and 13 maternal deaths.
Glory and status
Kidero said the facility requires a facelift of close to Sh3.5 billion to bring back the glory and status Pumwani enjoyed in Africa. And in Mombasa, even after the Government waived maternity fees some patients who delivered at the Coast Provincial General Hospital claimed they were ordered to pay for the services.
A man who sought anonymity said he had just paid Sh18,000 for his wife who had been admitted on Saturday and was to be discharged Monday.
Meanwhile, pregnant mothers at the Nakuru Provincial General Hospital are now enjoying free maternity services after President Uhuru made good his pre-election pledge. A spotcheck by The Standard revealed that the referral facility had effected the presidential decree.
Zipporah Wangechi, a mother who had given birth at the hospital, said that all one needed was a letter from nurses and doctors that they had stabilised and were free to go home.
Similarly, public hospitals in Mt Kenya region have implemented the waiver of maternity fee as directed by President Uhuru. Pregnant women at the Nyahururu district hospital Monday enjoyed free services as efforts to effect the directive intensified.
But some hospitals defied the order and went ahead to charge the fee, saying they had not received written communication from ministry headquarters.
-Reports by Rawlings Otieno, Linah Benyawa, Mercy Kaihenda, Nderitu Gichure and Maureen Odiwuor
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