EDITORIAL: Cancer care cannot wait for bureaucracy

The petition by the Kenya Network of Cancer Organizations (Kenco) to raise the annual Social Health Authority oncology cover should be a wake-up call for the government. No Kenyan should have to choose between life and bankruptcy — yet that is the grim reality for thousands of cancer patients today.

Cancer treatment in Kenya is not just a medical challenge; it is an economic catastrophe. Families deplete their SHA limit of Sh550,000 in mere months, far short of the millions required for chemotherapy, radiotherapy, surgery and life-sustaining drugs.

The numbers Kenco presented to Parliament paint a picture of desperation — patients forced to sell property, beg for help through harambees, or abandon treatment altogether.

When the former NHIF offered a slightly higher limit of Sh600,000, it was already inadequate. Reducing that figure under the SHA framework, while treatment costs continue to soar, is both illogical and inhumane. Universal health coverage must be built on equity, not austerity. The state cannot preach compassion while funding policies that leave the sick to fend for themselves.

Raising the annual oncology cover to at least Sh1.2 million, as Kenco proposes, would not be charity — it would be justice. Cancer does not discriminate, but inadequate policy does. If Kenya is serious about achieving equitable healthcare, then financial protection for its most vulnerable must come first. The government owes every patient not just sympathy but survival.

“Because of poverty, we must adopt the capitalist means of production to develop our resources to get rich. 

Sun Yat-sen: The Chinese physician, revolutionary, statesman and political philosopher was born on November 12, 1866.