Mombasa Governor Abdulswamad Nassir has addressed concerns following reports of some parents allegedly being asked to pay for medical services meant to be free for children under five years old.
The Governor had previously announced the implementation of free healthcare services for the youngest members of the community but has had to clarify that the initiative is only meant for Mombasa County children excluding the ones residing there.
Nassir has defended this decision to provide free medical care services exclusively to children from Mombasa, citing the overwhelming number of non-local patients at the Coast General Teaching and Referral Hospital.
“If you look at the Coast General Teaching and Referral Hospital, 60 to 70 percent of the sick children there are not from Mombasa. Please explain to me, when I start giving waivers to all children from Kenya, where will I get this money from?” The governor remarked.
The explanation sheds light on the financial considerations behind the targeted approach to ensure healthcare accessibility for Mombasa residents specifically.
The program was launched in May last year when the governor announced that his administration would ensure that children below the age of five years get free medical care at Coast General Hospital and its outreach facilities within Mombasa.
The governor at that time was responding to criticism after it had emerged that he had chased away the proprietors of Mombasa Cement Company from continuing discharging the philanthropic duties of paying hospital bills for poor patients stuck at the hospital.
The ambitious plan is being supported by funds collected from different sectors in the county as he added that the county will be supporting the hospital with Sh6 million monthly to help Mombasa residents who are not financially able to access medical services.
“The resources of Mombasa belong to the people of Mombasa, I will not shy away from it and I will not do anything that that is going to be contrary to that,” he noted.
“How do you expect me to carry the burden of a child from outside and leave my children because I fear people are going to talk,” Nassir added.
Nassir said that Mombasa receives about Sh650 million monthly as their equitable share from the national government. This money he said was not enough given that the county’s bloated wage bill stands at about Sh530 million every month.
Constitutionally, the governor has to allocate another Sh70 million to the Mombasa County Assembly. Whatever remains has to be channeled across development programs and services across the county.
The department of Health, Nassir said, had come up with ways of identifying Mombasa children who are eligible to benefit from the program.
This includes where the children were born and the place of birth as indicated in their birth certificates, where their parents come from as indicated on the back of their Identification cards, and where they are registered as voters.
If all these fall outside Mombasa, the children will not benefit from the program.
“I will not shy away; Mombasa money will be used on Mombasa people only. Unless you tell me to go and cancel the program, I will not be afraid of what people will say,” the governor said.
The governor also announced the extension of the waiver on accrued penalties and interest on single business permits for traders.
The extension will be up to the end of January, after which enforcement officers will move in to arrest those who would not have complied.
“The county waived off close to Sh100 million in accrued interests from the Covid-19 period to last year. We even reduced charges for single business permits so it will only be proper if people pay up and comply,” he said.
Nassir said that the county only collects less than Sh2 million from renting of stalls in all the markets in Mombasa, yet the money needed to provide necessary services in these markets extremely supersedes what the county collects.
By Fatma Said
