Low health budget driving Kenyans into poverty, study finds

Kenya must raise its health budget if it is serious about reducing the heavy out-of-pocket costs that continue to drive millions of citizens into poverty, a health financing expert has said.

“One way of making people poor is through making them pay from their own pocket when seeking health services. Some diseases are chronic requiring the people to constantly spend in the hospitals,” said Dr Dynesius Nyangau, a lecturer and researcher at Chuka University.

He was speaking in Nairobi during a bioethics conference organised by the Bioethics Society of Kenya, where he presented a new study titled Ethical Imperatives in Healthcare Financing: Legal Foundations and Policy Implications in Kenya.

Dr Nyangau noted that Kenya’s health budget currently stands at 7.5 per cent of the national allocation, far below the Abuja Declaration commitment of 15 per cent. The shortfall, he said, exposes Kenyans to high out-of-pocket (OOP) expenses, which now account for 26 per cent of total health expenditure.

According to his study, the burden is so severe that nearly 1.5 million Kenyans are pushed into poverty each year because of healthcare costs, posing a direct threat to the government’s Universal Health Coverage (UHC) plan.

In his report, Dr Nyangau stresses that the Constitution guarantees every Kenyan the right to the highest attainable standard of health, delivered in an open, equitable, and transparent manner. He calls for ethical financial practices in healthcare to ensure fair funding, especially for marginalised populations.

He identified corruption, weak oversight, and delays in disbursement as key ethical challenges undermining service delivery. To address these, he proposes embedding ethical audits in budgeting and procurement, strengthening anti-corruption measures, enhancing citizen participation, and developing equity-sensitive financing models.

“Ethics must underpin financing reforms to achieve Universal Health Coverage by 2030,” he emphasised.

Dr Nyangau also warned that Public-Private Partnerships raise concerns of fairness and profiteering, insisting such deals must undergo strict ethical scrutiny.