Cheap politics betrayed noble health agenda

The highlight of President Uhuru Kenyatta’s much-publicised visit to Kisumu last Thursday had been promoted as the launch of the universal health coverage (UHC) programme.

One of Mr Kenyatta’s four second-term legacy programmes, the UHC aims to give all Kenyans access to affordable health care in the long term.

Kisumu, long weighed down by the disease burden, is one of the four counties picked for the trial stage of the programme alongside Machakos, Nyeri and Isiolo before it can be rolled out to the rest of the country.

By all accounts, the UHC is the most important pillar of the so-called Big Four agenda given the sheer number of Kenyans, mostly ordinary people, who are likely to benefit from it. It is also relatively achievable considering the generous external financial support health programmes tend to attract.

CORRUPTION NETWORK

That is, if the programme can be protected from the corruption network of civil servants at Afya House and county governments and their favourite tenderpreneurs.

There is credible suspicion that the others like the affordable housing programme, for which workers will be taxed five per cent of their monthly incomes, are simply fattened cash cows for the graft lords such as the NHIF, the NYS and the NSSF.

Which is why it is a shame the launch of UHC in Kisumu had to be overshadowed by unhealthy political drama.

HIJACKED MEETING

I was monitoring the flow of photographs at my newsroom desk on Thursday, and the only one I saw featuring Sicily Kariuki, the Health Cabinet Secretary, prominently had her arriving at the airport.

She must have addressed the public meeting at Mamboleo Showground, the launch venue, but I wonder how many in that crowd remember anything she said there.

A gang of ill-mannered politicians had cynically hijacked the meeting meant to create public awareness about health care in much the same way they have been seen to behave at funerals.

And their speeches couldn’t have been more dissonant with the theme of the occasion.

HANDSHAKE

Every speaker appeared keen to please the politically charged crowd by saying nice things about Raila Odinga, the ODM party leader who enjoys a large following in the area.

The President introduced a new line to the familiar script praising his March 9 Handshake with Mr Odinga by making remarks that were widely interpreted as suggesting his support for a referendum.

Deputy President William Ruto, ever so clever, wasn’t going to lack words to flatter ‘Baba’.

The problem is that in seeking to outdo each other massaging Mr Odinga’s ego, an opportunity was lost to properly promote the important universal health care programme in a county with a heavy disease burden.

Where folks should have learnt how to register for the UHC or obtain NHIF cards and which hospitals to go to, they went home chanting political slogans like ‘Raila Tibim, Baba Tialala…’ instead.

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