The Nationwide Well being Insurance coverage Fund (NHIF) spends greater than Sh3 billion on renal dialysis claims yearly. FILE PHOTO | SHUTTERSTOCK

The Nationwide Well being Insurance coverage Fund (NHIF) spends greater than Sh3 billion on renal dialysis claims yearly.

For the sufferers, the perfect resolution to continual kidney failure is an organ transplant, which takes them off the dialysis machine and again to a traditional day-to-day existence.

Anti-rejection medication is essential to sustaining the donated kidneys, and it’s subsequently discouraging to see that the price of these medicines has shot up on the Kenyatta Nationwide Hospital, risking a return to dialysis for a lot of who can not afford the upper fees.

Whereas the federal government has been proactive in funding dialysis, and the transplant course of itself by way of the NHIF it stays a curious case of oversight why it has been reluctant to increase assist to the acquisition of the expensive antirejection medicine.

The prospect of expensive post-transplant care versus State-paid dialysis is among the elements behind some folks opting to stay on the machines even once they have a viable and prepared organ donor.

We imagine that it’s now crucial for the federal government to rethink its stance on post-transplant care funding, for the advantage of sufferers and to ease the NHIF’s dialysis claims.