Two months after President Uhuru Kenyatta launched a KSh 4 billion medical scheme for students, it has now emerged that girls who get pregnant while in school will not benefit from the free medical coverage.
National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) chief executive Geoffrey Mwangi said the girls will be forced to look for another source of funding including Linda Mama.
The free medical cover for students had not factored in early pregnancies. The free medical cover for students had not factored in early pregnancies.
“If any of the secondary school girls get pregnant, they will not be covered by the NHIF. Those who will want to be assisted may opt to look for other sources of funding or register with the ‘Linda Mama’ initiative,” Mwangi said.
He added the secondary school medical cover was to take care of in-patient and outpatient illnesses. The school medical cover which is among the government’s Big Four agenda will see some KSh 1,350 paid for each student.
The announcement by NHIF comes just days after Uhuru announced his universal health cover initiative with Kisumu, Nyeri, Machakos and Nyeri counties being the first beneficiaries.
An earlier report revealed that Uhuru said the national government would keep its promise to support county governments to reach out to as many people as possible to get them registered under the cover.
The Head of State said the universal health cover provision initiative had already recorded success like increasing the number of individuals enrolled to NHIF from 4 million in 2013 to over 7 million in 2018.