Kenya Union of Clinical Officers (KUCO) National Chairman Peterson Wachira and Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union (KMPDU) Secretary-General and CEO Davji Atellah
Kenya’s healthcare challenges are largely due to inadequate and delayed financing, health union officials have said.
Speaking during an interview on Spice FM on Friday, Kenya Union of Clinical Officers (KUCO) National Chairman Peterson Wachira and Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union (KMPDU) Secretary-General and CEO Davji Atellah warned that reforms will struggle to deliver better care without sufficient resources.
Wachira said nearly every aspect of healthcare is affected when facilities lack adequate and timely funding, and urged the government to prioritise healthcare financing, budgeting and implementation of existing reforms, particularly at the primary healthcare level.
“The challenge comes in at the primary healthcare level because it is funded by the Exchequer, which has not been able to fund it to where it is supposed to be,” Wachira said.
Reiterating his remarks, Atellah said financing was critical to ensuring health facilities could continue providing care, particularly where they depend on reimbursements.
He said patients with insurance should not be denied treatment because of delays in payments to health facilities, arguing that the government needed a mechanism to ensure facilities receive money owed to them.
“A patient who has insurance and comes to a hospital should not be denied care, but we must have a mechanism that ensures that the debt owed to facilities, whether private or public, is paid so that people can get the care they need,” he said.