Health Market Assessment Expose Critical Gaps in Kenya’s Healthcare, Urges Reforms
A new report, The State of Kenya’s Health Market 2024, launched on September 19, 2024, reveals critical findings that could reshape the country’s healthcare landscape.
Conducted by the Ministry of Health in collaboration with USAID’s Private Sector Engagement (PSE) Program, the market assessment provides an overview of Kenya’s health system.
It highlights key market gaps, their underlying causes, and explores challenges and opportunities within the healthcare sector. The report also offers recommendations to improve market performance and expand access to quality healthcare services, products, and technologies.
The assessment, utilizing the Shaping Equitable Market Access (SEMA) framework, evaluated both public and private health sectors across six priority counties—Nairobi, Kisumu, Uasin Gishu, Homa Bay, Nakuru, and Mombasa. It identified several opportunities to enhance market efficiency, service delivery, and patient outcomes.
Key Findings:
- Fragmented Coordination: Kenya’s healthcare market is a mix of public, non-profit, and for-profit institutions. Despite a national management framework, coordination at the county level remains fragmented, leading to inconsistent service delivery. Strengthening governance and aligning efforts between counties and the national government are crucial for improving healthcare outcomes.
- Limited Data Sharing Between Public and Private Sectors: Insufficient data sharing negatively impacts healthcare planning and decision-making. Private sector market data remains largely inaccessible, creating an information gap that hampers effective healthcare solutions.
- Financial Constraints and Supply Chain Challenges: Despite allocating around 11% of its budget to healthcare, Kenya’s health system relies heavily on donor funding. Additionally, supply chain issues further strain the system’s ability to provide consistent, affordable healthcare. The successful implementation of Social Health Insurance (SHI) could expand insurance coverage and improve access to healthcare.
- Underutilized Local Manufacturing Capacity: Kenya’s shift to mandatory SHI presents an opportunity to expand local manufacturing, driven by increasing demand for health services and products. However, underutilized production capacity and the lack of price control policies threaten the availability of affordable, locally-produced medicines.
- Private Sector Quality: While the private sector is perceived to offer higher quality care, smaller providers face operational challenges due to high costs and low revenues. Implementing a unified quality policy, such as the Kenya Quality Model for Health, is necessary to ensure equitable healthcare across all providers.
- Inconsistent Demand Data and Socioeconomic Factors: Nationwide healthcare demand data is limited, often focused on specific health programs. Socioeconomic factors, coupled with low insurance coverage (currently at 26%, with most members in the informal sector inactive), limit access to care for many Kenyans. Comprehensive data and policies are needed to bridge gaps in service, product, and technology utilization.
The report underscores the urgent need for reforms to foster a sustainable and equitable healthcare ecosystem. It calls for strengthened governance and enhanced coordination between public and private healthcare stakeholders as key priorities.
A standout recommendation is the need to move beyond dialogue to comprehensive coordination across the healthcare market.
Kenya’s current governance system focuses primarily on public health services, but the report advocates for an integrated approach overseeing both public and private health sector dynamics. This strategy would improve oversight, decision-making, and growth in Kenya’s health sector.
Released at a critical time as Kenya strives toward Universal Health Coverage (UHC), the report’s findings have the potential to drive significant reforms. Media outlets are urged to help bring these critical issues to the forefront, shaping the future of healthcare in Kenya.
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