Kenya: Poor Internet, One of the Hindrances to SHA Registration in Baringo

Nakuru — Poor internet connectivity has been singled out as one of the main hindrances to Social Health Authority (SHA) registration in the vast Baringo County.

Other draw backs were identified as the rough terrain, poor infrastructure, insecurity due to cattle rustling, and natural calamities such as the constant drought and floods.

Dandelion Africa Executive Director, Wendo Sahar said Electronic Communication Health Information System was a noble idea in terms of registering people to SHA but internet network coverage was a major impediment in far flung counties.

She said the gap was where the system connects to the government health facility because they may not be in a position or ready to offer services to the people.

“The health Information system is great in terms of risks cause assessment by Community Health Promoters (CHPs) and referring clients to health facilities but the health facilities may not be ready for the support or to give communities the support that they need,” she said.

Speaking at Dandelion Health Centre during a SHA awareness training for CHPs and health workers from Baringo County who included County Executive Committee Member for Health and his Chief Officer, Sahar said urged telecommunication providers to enhance connectivity in the area.

“Connectivity should not be a reserve for the rich, it should be provided to the needy community in the remote areas who need it most,” she said.

On insecurity, Shahar said CHPs may not traverse different sub-counties of Baringo due to cattle rustling and ethnic clashes that have affected the region over decades.

“The overall SHA registration in the county is at 27 per cent which can be attributed to all these factors,” she said during the workshop where CHPs were taught about electronic community health information system.

Sahar said Dandelion Africa hoste the County Government of Baringo Department of Health and other stakeholders to create awareness about SHA Community Health Strategy Maternal Health and ways to improve health outcomes in the region.

“SHA has been a very contentious issue across the country and while the government is doing its best to ensure that people get the support that they require in every facility there is also a lot of gaps when it comes to training CHPs,” she said.

She observed that registration was slow because of the mistrust that communities have due to lack of awareness of how they can benefit from the SHA.

She called on stakeholders from across Baringo County from CEC to directors, people in charge of community health strategy to discuss how best they could have 100 per cent SHA registration.

“The is find out how best can we ensure that CHPs are better equipped to register households and how to involve other stakeholders including county commissioners in ensuring that every household know the benefits of SHA.

She said Dandelion Africa’s work an a non-profit organisation was to complement the government’s work and ensure that communities got the right and timely information.

“We are segmenting all the information, bringing on all the stakeholders with the right information to that the community gets the rights and timely information,” she added.

SHA Rift Valley Regional Manager, Shalom Kiptum echoed Sahar’s sentiments saying that the mantra of Universal Health Coverage (UHC) which is captured in SHA was to ensure that nobody was left behind.

She promised that SHA shall ensure that registration is done smoothly to cover all regions regardless of network or infrastructural challenges.

On issues of poor net work, Kiptum said SHA may have to reach out to partners such as safaricom to ensure that connectivity gets to the furthest terrain

“Baringo County is vast and without network, we may not register some of the community members because SHA is highly digitised,” she said

She emphasized the need to use the CHPs because they were at the grassroots and could go door to door to ensure that everyone was brought on board.

She urged the CHPs to use schools during opening and closing days to register the children and capture the parents in the process

By Capital FM.