The Social Health Authority (SHA) has indicated that it is reviewing its cancer care insurance package, with a view to expanding the scope of treatment benefits for cancer patients.
The move comes in response to patient and advocacy groups’ complaints that cancer treatment is too expensive and that SHA’s insurance package provides insufficient financial cover.
On Tuesday, 7th October, dozens of patients marched outside the headquarters of the SHA calling for a straightforward review of the current benefit cap. They asserted that the current grant of Ksh 550,000 is sadly insufficient to cover the expensive cost of surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, and required medicines.
“We are drowning in debt just staying alive,” a patient said during the protest. “What is covered by the insurance hardly scratches the surface.”
SHA CEO Dr. Mercy Mwangangi countered that the authority’s Benefit Package and Tariffs Advisory Panel (BPTAP) is already considering the oncology package to provide patients with wider financial cover.
“Our core mandate is to provide an evidence base for better health outcomes and financial protection, in pursuit of the right to health and universal health coverage,” Dr. Mwangangi clarified in a Thursday, September 9 release.
The recently gazetted BPTAP has been tasked with advising SHA on the range of health benefits it offers. Following exposure by Dr. Mwangangi, the panel’s first focus is to modify the cancer treatment benefit to increase the threshold of treatment and address the gap between healthcare costs and covers.
SHA also disclosed that it would meet with members of the Kenya Network of Cancer Organisations (KENCO) towards the end of the week to chart the course of the future in improving patient care.
The cost of cancer treatment as a whole will be lowered through increased collaboration with advocacy bodies, hospitals, and the drug industry, Dr. Mwangangi asserted.
“SHA receives KENCO’s memorandum in its entirety. It is a sign of the steps we are making as a country to craft reforms that direct our benefits and tariff packages,” the statement read.
SHA had increased the threshold of oncology package from Ksh 400,000 to Ksh 550,000 earlier this year a move which the agency indicated was among the government’s efforts to curtail the price of treating cancer.
Still, for the majority of Kenyans who face the harsh reality of treating cancer, that number is still below par.
Patients and activists hope that this time it will make a difference as SHA embarks on its review.
