HomeQuality healthcare is a challenge in Kenya. There is a huge portion of the Kenyan population that doesn’t access quality healthcare because of limited resources and the proximity to health centres.
What is quality healthcare?
According to the World Health Organization (WHO) quality of care is the degree to which health services for individuals and populations increase the likelihood of desired health outcomes. The WHO gives the following ways for defining quality healthcare:
- Effective– provide evidence-based healthcare services to those who need them
- Safe– avoiding harm to people for whom the care is intended
- People-centred– providing care that responds to individual preferences, needs and values.
The WHO further illustrates that benefits of quality healthcare will be realized if health services are:
- Timely– reducing waiting times and eliminating harmful delays
- Equitable– providing care that does not vary in quality to all regardless of their gender, socio-economic status or geographical location.
- Integrated– the care provided must make the full range of health services throughout the life course available.
- Efficient– maximizing the benefit of available resources and avoiding waste.
For Kenya, by 2014, according to a report by Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI) Wellcome Trust, only 52% have access to universal healthcare. The following reasons stand as barriers to raising the percentage to 100% according to the report titled “TOWARDS UNIVERSAL HEALTH COVERAGE IN KENYA: ARE WE ON THE RIGHT PATH?”:
- The Kenyan government has consistently underfunded the health sector
- Kenya’s health system is heavily reliant on donor funds and out of pocket systems
- Kenya’s reliance on voluntary payments to the NHIF as a pathway to UHC is contributing to the country’s slow UHC progress
- The overall structure of health financing contributions in Kenya has been shown to be regressive
- Healthcare purchasing in Kenya has been shown not to be strategic and hence compromises equity, quality and efficiency
Civil society’s role in Kenya
Civil societies that want to tackle the health situation in Kenya should provide evidence-based solutions to aid Kenya to achieve 100% UHC and quality care at that. Already we have organizations such as the Afya Kenya foundation, AMREF Flying Doctors Network, African Medical and Research Foundation (AMREF), which are working in different capacities to strengthen the state of health in Kenya.
To be more effective they need to work at the policy level to improve healthcare. The first and main recommendation from the KEMRI experts suggests that public spending should be leveraged to scale up prepayment financing.
Afya Kenya foundation has made strides in providing free medical camps in rural areas and slum areas in urban cities such as Nairobi. However, for the efforts to be sustainable, the health administrators in Kenya have to join in the efforts by formulating better policies and lobbying for more tax funding from the government of Kenya.
