Kibish – December 21, 2025 (Public Communication and Media Relations)
Access to healthcare and health indicators in Kibish Sub-County have long been limited not only by distance travelled, but by lack of health insurance coverage. Through One Health’s Kimormor health interventions, that barrier is rapidly shrinking.
During the outreach, over 800 people were successfully registered into the Social Health Authority (SHA), many of them living between 30 and 80 kilometres from the nearest health facility and some villages without mobile network connectivity.
“Kimormor has helped me access communities I would never reach on my own,” said Ignatius Ekutan, SHA representative. “Some of these villages are 30 kilometres away. Without this outreach, these families would remain excluded from universal healthcare,”
The County One Health Coordinator, Kipkorir Rotich, said SHA registration is a critical pillar of the One Health model.
“Healthcare does not end at treatment,” he said. “Registering families into SHA ensures continuity of care, sustainability of services and financial protection for households that are already vulnerable,”
From a systems perspective, Kevin Kwaba, Health Records and Information Officer (HRIO) for Kibish Sub-County, said the outreach has had a major impact on data, follow-up and service planning.
“Kimormor helps us capture populations that are constantly moving and far from facilities,” he said. “Through SHA registration and SIM card enrolment, we can now notify mothers of appointments, reduce defaulter rates and ensure these services reflect in facility data.”
Kwaba added that expectant mothers—who rarely visit facilities unless it is an emergency—are now being reached earlier, improving maternal and child health outcomes.
Adding a programmatic perspective, Anthony Arasio, Technical Lead for Maternal and Newborn Health at Amref Health Africa, said SHA enrolment strengthens maternal and child health outcomes. “This model supports county-led systems to reach underserved populations with people-centred care,”
The importance of SHA registration in strengthening immunisation and child health tracking was echoed by Gilchrist Eloiloi, Kibish Sub-County EPI Coordinator. “Insurance coverage supports continuity of care,” he said. “When families are registered into SHA, it becomes easier to follow up children for routine immunisation and newly introduced vaccines, especially among mobile pastoralist populations.”
County officials say the combined SHA and SIM card registration has also strengthened facility claims processing, helping health centres recover costs and improve service delivery.
Through this Kimormor outreach, the county moved a step up the SHA registration national ranking to 46 out of 47, proving such outreaches can greatly boost the registration and improve the overall health outcomes for the residents, and especially, the highly mobile pastoralist communities.
