Covid-19 stretched Kenya’s healthcare system thin, Economic Survey shows
A nurse attends to Covid-19 patient recuperating at Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Teaching and Referral Hospital in Kisumu County on June 10, 2021.
The Covid-19 pandemic has brought about ‘an unparalleled stretch’ on the Kenyan healthcare system, the 2021 Economic Survey report states.
The survey, released yesterday by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS), notes that containment measures like banning international flights, night to dawn curfew, as well as movement restrictions have had a devastating effect on the health sector, with a reported drop in in demand for healthcare services across the country.
The report further indicates that there was a general decline in the uptake of modern contraceptives, as deliveries in health facilities increased by 1.8 per cent to 1.2 million in 2020. Normal deliveries accounted for 82.8 per cent of the new births.
Family planning injections were recorded as the most popular method of contraception with 2.3 million people opting to use them followed by Pills Combined Oral Contraception which recorded 681,600 users last year.
The document discloses that permanent family planning methods registered low uptake with the number of females undergoing Sterilisation Tubal Ligation dropping to 4,435 while male sterilisation vasectomy recorded 334 takers.
“As an emergency response to the pandemic, the national government disbursed Sh7.7 billion to the counties for Covid-19 support,” says the report.
The KNBS data shows the government’s expenditure on health rose by 34.5 per cent to Sh 103.1 billion in 2019/20, with development expenditure taking 41.0 per cent of the amount.
County government’s expenditure on health services rose by 16 per cent to Sh 106.7 billion in 2019/20, of which 83.5 per cent was recurrent expenditure.
While dissecting the performance of health insurance, KNBS found that the membership of the National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF) last year went up by 6 per cent to 22 million in 2019/20 and as a result contributions to the body grew by 5.7 per cent to Sh 59.5 billion, while the amount of benefits payout increased by 1.8 per cent to Sh 54.4 billion.
According to the data, the proportion of payouts to receipts decreased from 94.9 per cent in 2018/19 to 91.4 per cent in 2019/20.
NHIF membership in the formal sector of the economy went up by 3.6 per cent compared to 8.3 per cent growth in the informal sector.
The total number of sicknesses reported decreased by 31.6 per cent to 60.0 million in the year 2020.
“Diseases of the respiratory system and malaria accounted for 27.6 per cent and 19.1 per cent of the total disease caseload.
According to the bureau of statistics the number of healthcare facilities increased from 13,700 in 2019 to 14,600 in 2020 and this resulted to an increase in the number of hospital beds by 9.6 per cent to 82,091 while hospital cots went up by 7.7 per cent to 8,946 at the time of the review.
It was observed that majority of the hospital beds (45 percent) and cots were located in public health facilities.
Of the total healthcare facilities in the country, 77.9 percent are Level 2, which comprises of dispensaries (51.4 per cent ), medical clinics (45.5 per cent) and stand-alone facilities (3.0) per cent with government owning 82.4 per cent of the dispensaries while 94.4 per cent of medical clinics are owned by the private sector as per the report.
While Level 3 health facilities increased from 2,313 in 2019 to 2,355 in 2020, most health centres, which comprise 79.9 per cent, are owned by government while private sectors own 93.8 per cent of the nursing homes.
Level 4, 5 and 6 accounted for 6 per cent of the total facilities.
Registered nurses in the country had the highest ratio of 130.6 per 100,000 population while nutrition and dietics technicians had the lowest ratio at 2.0 per 100,000 population last year, as the number of registered health professionals per 100,000 population went up for all the cadres save for medical laboratory technicians which remained constant.
The total number of medical students in universities increased by 13.5 per cent to 22,200 while the total number of medical graduates and post-graduates went down by 69.9 per cent to 1,396 last year.
Likewise, the number of middle-level graduates from the Kenya Medical Training College (KMTC) decreased by 67.4 per cent to 4,114 during the 2019/20 academic year.
From 2018 to 2020 the total number of admissions for children under five increased by 2.7 per cent to 117,441 last year, with Pneumonia leading at 12.9 per cent followed by Malaria at 10 per cent .
A total of 184,185 deaths were registered unlike the previous year, where 191,495 people lost their lives with more than 53.4 per cent of the reported death taking place in health facilities.
The male deaths were at 56.6 per cent of the total.
Death registration coverage rate declined from 39.1 per cent to 36.8 per cent last year, while the birth registration coverage rate was at 71.5 per cent compared to 76.2 per cent in 2019.
