I can tell this auditorium that by the time I complete my term, my first term, I can tell you I will have discharged all the commitments I had made and made sure that every mother who walks out of hospital will walk out with diapers once they give birth. Let me also say another gentleman and I wish he was in this room today who told me at that time that Mr. Deputy President, please find a mechanism where citizens can contribute not a fixed number as we were doing but a percentage of their income, a percentage of their salary. Today in this auditorium all of us know here that each one of us contributes 2.75% of their salary or income. The people who are paying the most at 5% have come down to 2.75%. Those of us like me who was paying 0.01% of my salary, today I pay 2.75%. We have made contributions equal as a function of your income. That was what I was asked by that gentleman. That is what we have done. So in short on that list of the commitments that I made to the people of Kenya, I will be ready for the exam next year. I will be ready for the exam next year and my target is to get 100%.
The management cost under NHIF was 40% of the collections at one point. In 2022, it was 17% of collections went to management. Under SHA we have brought down management cost from 17% in NHIF to 5% in SHA number one and the cost of technology that we are using is included inside the 5%. That is where we begin and we have said for facilities and I saw one of the headlines there saying that there is a ghost company being paid 1.2 billion by hospitals. You know for your information hospitals do not pay any private entity. Hospitals pay SHA and the cost is this. So this skunk thing is a fallacy you know. 1.2, there is a 1.2 billion firm. I can confirm to you that that is money paid to SHA and the money paid to SHA is in law. Facilities pay 2% but with a maximum of 5,000 shillings per claim and it is in law. It is not something you go and negotiate in the bush. It is in law and we have made sure and I can answer any question from anybody on the amounts of money we are paying for technology and every payment is underwritten by law in regulations to make sure that we protect public assets.
There are many people who say I was elected in 2022 merely because I said hustler and bottom up. Today I think you have seen that I made commitments. I had a plan and I made commitments to the people of Kenya. And it is on that basis that the people of Kenya gave me a mandate. And it is what is expected of every leader that if you want the mandate to lead a country, you must give the people your plan, your vision, your commitment on what you're going to do. And this evening I am going to answer and I am very happy I saw the commitments I made before the election in 2022. Number one, I think I made like seven or eight commitments on matters health alone. Seven or eight commitments. Commitment number one, I said that we are going to have a health system that is going to make sure that every citizen can have access to healthcare. I called it that time hustler. But we came and said it should be called social health authority. Today my commitment on making sure that we have a system that works, a system where Kenyans can access health in a predictable manner, today is a reality and 32.3 million Kenyans are registered on that platform.
You remember the gentleman who asked there and said about emergency and that he told me that time in 2022 I think it was June. He told me government must operationalize the emergency facility because too many people will lose their lives because in an emergency if you go to a hospital the first thing a hospital will ask you who's going to pay the bill and in the process of asking all those questions and finding out who will pay the bill we lose lives we lose people. That is why we went to parliament, we passed the law, we now have an emergency chronic and critical illness fund that now funds emergencies and two three weeks ago we launched that facility which comes complete with an ambulance facility. Paid for emergency service for the first 24 hours paid for and beneficiaries don't have to be members of any insurance facility including SHA you don't have to be a member of SHA so long as you are in an emergency the government of Kenya as was requested as I was told in 2022 and I committed to do. Today I have discharged that responsibility. Two weeks ago we launched the facility and we are moving.
We have already changed the way our Linda Jami program operates. You remember the Linda Mama program operated differently from the Linda Jami. The Linda Mama focused on the mother and on delivery. Today, the Linda Jami program focuses on the mother, focuses on the child, and focuses on the household. The numbers have changed. Linda Mama was 2,500 paid or refunded for public facilities, 3,500 for private facilities, 6,500 for caesarean section, 10,000 for private hospitals. We have changed that metrics. Today from 2,500 we now pay 10,000 for all facilities irrespective of whether they are private, public or faith-based for normal delivery. We have increased four times what was being paid. Number two for caesarean section which was 5,500 in public facilities 10,000 in private facilities we have raised that up to 30,000 for all facilities. So we have equalized all the facilities because a mother giving birth in a private facility is as good as a mother giving birth in a public facility or a faith-based facility. We have equalized that whole space.
We have designed a digital system and I want to say this with clarity. This whole ecosystem would not have been possible if we didn't have a digital system to make sure that everything as I said earlier in the day that every patient must be visible, every treatment must be traceable and every payment must be accountable. That is what the digital system enables us to do. And what did we do? We did not buy the system. Just the same way today we have MRI machines, we have CT scan machines, we have theater machines worth billions of shillings but we haven't paid a single one of them. What we have done what we have told manufacturers is they invest in the machines. They bring the machines, we pay for service for every one service, we pay. It is their business to maintain, to make sure the machines are working. It is their business to make sure that the machines are operational. They service the machines. They provide the consumables. Ours is not to buy machines. Ours is to provide service for citizens who want treatment. It is the same thing we did. We asked companies to invest their money in a digital platform, a health digital platform. They invest the money, we pay for the service.
My very best wishes on your exams. I really appreciate the support and the leadership of the county governments in the delivery of this service. But the heroes of this delivery are the people of Kenya themselves. Without the contribution of the people of Kenya, the 2.75% it would not have been possible to provide this service. And you know there is nothing as critical as a sovereign state. If we were delivering this service on either borrowed money or on money given as grants by different benefactors, we wouldn't be here. This is a service. This is a program that has been delivered by the people of Kenya with their own resources, with their own professionals, with our leadership. All we provided was leadership. The rest came from the people of Kenya. And I am very very proud that today we speak in this auditorium of what we have achieved.
The numbers speak for themselves and I can confidently without fear of any contradiction say that today health is not a privilege for those who have jobs or who have income or who have means or who can afford. But health is what the constitution envisaged in section 43. It is a right for every Kenyan and I am very very proud that we are there today. So again back to you Merci, we started with the commitments I made. I am happy that the record will speak out for itself when the time comes on the commitments I made and also it has contextualized you know there are some of the people who think that I was elected on the basis of noise. It was not on the basis of noise. It was on the basis of a commitment I made to the people of Kenya and the commitments are there. You saw it for yourselves on what I was going to do on universal health coverage on what I was going to do on CHPS. So anybody seeking elective office, please avoid the noise, avoid the slogans, have a plan because the people of Kenya are intelligent. They will judge each and every leader on the basis of their plan, on the basis of their commitment, not on the basis of slogans and noise. If you continue on the basis of slogans and noise, you'll be in for a very rude shock.
You all appreciate that it is not any mean achievement to get the kind of endorsement you receive from a trade unionist. You really have to work hard for it. Dr. Harry, I agree with you on all your assessments. There are areas we have succeeded, but there are areas that require improvement. You have said first where did you find my manifesto? Oh, it's a public document. It's a contract. Thank you very much. And you have done correctly. You have said out of the 13 issues that promised there are two that are outstanding. If you were a teacher, if somebody gets 11 out of 13, roughly 85, that to me looks like an A, right? But anyway, I said I'm aiming for 100%. So it's work in progress. So let me say of the two things you have mentioned. Number one, you have said what is the progress on the commitment that we made in the manifesto on progressively making sure that there are 20,000 health workers hired to assist in the transition to universal health coverage.
I can tell you Dr. that number one, we've already committed to transition all the doctors and health workers that were hired under the UHC program from contract to permanent and pensionable. From this month all those people are now transitioned and the 7,800 of them I am having a conversation with our counties in the event that the counties have a problem absorbing them. I can confirm to you that we will absorb them as national government and place them in whatever facilities we consider fit. But I am sure that we are going to have an agreement with our friends in the counties. Number one. Number two, we have already committed this year to hire 5,000 health workers. This year we have already hired another 4,000 in our referral hospitals. Our referral hospitals have hired 4,000 health workers in the last four years. So if you add 4,000 hired by our referral hospitals, 5,000 we are hiring this year, that is 9,000, 7,800 we are going to make permanent and pensionable roughly that is 16,000 out of 20,000.
But that is not the full story. Our counties and I must commend our counties. In the last four years, counties have hired 28,174 health workers. So if you look at my manifesto and you count all the numbers, we have actually exceeded the 20,000 that we put in the manifesto. That is even if you want to look at it as health workers hired by national government alone, we are already at 16,000. So we're not too far away from hitting our target. But if we look at government in its totality, we have already actually doubled the 20,000. We are at 40,000 and something. So we are in good space. Dr. Number two, you have mentioned about collective bargaining agreement and you want us to do this this time round without a strike. So and I want to undertake that we will establish the necessary committees for us to engage and please let's do it without a strike. We are ready to engage and I'm sure we will agree all of us are reasonable people. We will make sure that we put the interest of the people we serve the Kenyan people ahead of our own interests either political or in your good offices of the trade union. So I'm sure we will agree on that.
And then the last issue that you mentioned was SH reimbursements. No, he said premium payments. Two things. You said there are some health workers, doctors that have not been paid by counties their last month's salary and I did undertake that we will have a better working and engagement with the counties to make sure that they deliver on their commitments and on their mandate. I have two things to tell you. The governor sitting in this auditorium will tell you that for the year 2025-2026 we did not cross over with any monies due to counties. We paid all the money. Number one. Number two, the money for July, the shareable revenue for July due to counties has already been paid. So we have no money outstanding on our part due to counties. I am sure our good counties are making arrangements on how they will pay those who have not paid. You've said there are some counties that have not paid salaries for these hardworking people. I am sure they are making arrangements and if the chair of council has something to say he will have the opportunity to say it. But from the national government point of view, we have dispersed all monies due to our counties for last year up to June 30th and for July this year, they received it in the month of July and I'm sure they are making arrangements.
I agree with you that it is not possible for us to be able to effectively deliver on universal health coverage if SH reimbursements are not done by everybody you know and I agree with you 100%. So for the facilities, for the MDS, ministries, departments, we have made sure on our part that we do it as we do salaries and make sure that facilities have their money. I will ask all others, our counties, parastatals and other agencies to do likewise so that we can enable SHA to be able to do the great job that they are doing. In NHIF, you paid and waited for 3 months for the cover to be active. In fact, many people are pushing me to say, why don't you go back to that? No, you cannot tell a sick person pay wait for 3 months so that you can come for treatment. What about if they die or if something happens to them? So the moment they come to hospital if they are not registered we register them they pay immediately and they access service at that point in time. That is how we have changed the metrics and that is how we are going to do it going into the future.
I remember saying also earlier about cancer. You know, we had a big problem with cancer as we all know and treatment. We have again upped resources for cancer from 500,000 to now 800,000 cover for all citizens registered under SHA. Every citizen of Kenya, so long as you are registered in SHA, you will walk into any facility, public, private, faith-based facility anywhere in Kenya. So long as you're registered in SHA, you will walk in and walk out without paying a single cent for outpatient facility. If you have to be admitted for surgery or for other facilities, that is when you have to make a contribution or the government of Kenya, if you are not able, the government of Kenya will pay for you, but you will be assessed and everybody will be assessed for what they can pay.
We said we are going to empower every facility to make decisions. We send the money not anymore to the county but we send reimbursement for every citizen a dispensary treats. For every citizen a health center treats, we send the reimbursement to that dispensary. If they treat 20 people, we send reimbursement for 20 people. If they treat 1,000 people, we send reimbursement for 1,000 people. But financing is not the only challenge. The other challenge is equipment. To be able to provide service, you need the theater, but you also need equipment. And so we agreed and we designed a program called National Equipment Service Program. And how did we do it? We said let us pull all our facilities and negotiate together with manufacturers because it is difficult for manufacturers to go and negotiate with a dispensary or a health center alone. But if we pull together through the economies of scale, we can be able to have the muscle to negotiate for better prices, better facilities and also for the manufacturers. It is easier for the manufacturers to deal with us as one entity than to deal with us as individuals. They are assured of their money being paid and they are assured that every facility is going to pay their bit. So today we have equipment supplied by manufacturers, equipment that has not been paid by the facilities.
