Medical care in this our beloved country is very expensive, this is due to the fact that a majority of public hospitals have been neglected hence the preference for private facilities. As such it is often said that a majority of Kenyans are one serious illness away from poverty. Basically, one serious illness in the family can easily bankrupt you. This is because once someone is admitted to hospital, there are various costs that one has to pay like the doctors fee, charges for tests, drugs which most often than not are expensive among other things. Hence the reason why nowadays most people opt to do fundraisers to take care of hefty medical bills.
Medical bills have a way of taking away all the disposable income that a family has in the event of an illness. So, you find that funds which could have otherwise been used to pay for school fees, improve the homestead or even invest in an income generating biashara are all spent on medical bills. It also does not help that due to constrained finances, many people end up being treated by quacks in sub-standard medical facilities where they might not get the proper diagnosis and treatment. This means that such individuals would have to pay more money to get proper treatment in a more expensive facility hence they would have to dig deeper into their pockets or even borrow. This is basically how a well to do family can easily find itself in the vicious cycle of poverty. This is more so when it is the bread winner of the family who has been taken ill as during this period, they are not able to generate an income. In cases when the illness is prolonged, they might even lose their jobs! Imagine a situation whereby you don’t have money, you are in debt and now without a job, yet you have a family to sustain.
I witnessed this first hand when the mother to a pal of mine got into an accident some few years back. Her injuries were so serious that she had to spend a couple of months in hospital and as you can imagine the medical bill was high and running into Millions. What saved the family was the luckily the Mum had an insurance cover courtesy of her employer which took care of the bills. You can just imagine what would have happened if she didn’t have an insurance cover. They would have spent all their resources on paying the bills conduct fundraisers or even borrow so as to pay off the bills. Therefore, I can never emphasize enough on the importance of having a medical cover.
This was the life of our teachers until their employer the Teachers Service Commission wisely saw the need to get them a medical insurance cover with Minet Kenya. I have to say that this cover has been a life saver for our teachers because they don’t have to worry about how to pay for medical bills. This means that they can be able to use their disposable income to improve the welfare of their families. This is important more so during our current tough economic times. As we all know, a happy employee will be able to carryout their duties better hence improving the standards of education in our country.