Families spend Sh63bn on health
What you need to know:
- Household budget taking a serious battering.
- Kenyans pushed into poverty as money is poured into care for those living with terminal illnesses.
Households in 44 counties spend more than Sh63 billion a year on health-related expenses, says a new survey.
This means they are spending beyond the household budget, leading to impoverishment.
HIV and Aids accounted for the highest spending, followed by reproductive health diseases and malaria. Others are respiratory infections, vaccine-preventable and non-communicable diseases.
Kajiado County tops the list of out-of-pocket spending for outpatient services, followed by Nairobi and Kirinyaga. Siaya has the least out-of-pocket spending in this category.
Nairobi leads in patient admission spending followed by Nyeri and Lamu counties.
HAS BEEN DECLINING
Released on Tuesday by the Ministry of Health, the report, titled 2013 Kenya Household Health Expenditure and Utilisation Survey, notes that with more uptake of health insurance and government subsidies, this spending —also called catastrophic health expenditure — has been declining in the past decade from 11.4 per cent to the current 6.2 per cent.
The study interviewed 33,675 households and inquired about the various demographic and socioeconomic factors that affect health seeking behaviour as well as how health services are used and paid for in the country.
It was conducted between August 4 and October 17 last year. It did not, however, cover Garissa, Mandera and Wajir counties due to insecurity.
A ministry official, Dr Peter Kimuu said: “The out-of-pocket spending showed a steady drop between 2003 and 2007, only to rise again in 2013 to over Sh63 billion. Outpatient care took the lion’s share of the costs.”
According to a World Health Organisation report, the key function of a health system is to protect the population against the financial risks associated with ill health.
“More Kenyans become poor when sick. We have a health insurance that can address this and thus we are appealing to trade unions opposed to it to reconsider the benefits to Kenyans and their pockets,” said the director of Medical Services, Dr Nicholas Muraguri, in Nairobi on Tuesday.
Coincidentally, according to the study, health insurance coverage did not seem to significantly affect whether someone sought outpatient care. The insured and uninsured reported the same number of outpatient visits.
Currently, 6.8 million people are insured by government (88 per cent) while the private sector insures 9.4 per cent and community-based insurance accounts for 1.3 per cent.
