@DonaldAgwenge
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| Mzee Jomo Kenyatta with Tom Mboya in 1964 |
President Uhuru Kenyatta launched the Universal Health Care pilot program in Kisumu county in December last year. The WHO describes UHC as a health system that is of quality, accessible and affordable to all. The journey towards this healthcare system began during the government of the senior Kenyatta and it is evident that the late has prefigured his son to accomplish the task he had began during the Independence cabinet.
The year 1963, Kenya got her independence from Britain with Mzee Jomo Kenyatta as the first President. In the first cabinet, he appointed a brilliant young man Tom Joseph Mboya to head the ministry of national planning.
The Kenyatta government adopted Mboya’s authorship, the famous sessional paper no 10 of 1965; African Socialism and its application to planning in Kenya. A paper that was meant to set foundations to slay the inherited dragons at independence – poverty, ignorance and diseases.
The sessional paper intended to achieve its goals through government planning spiced and built around social justice and equity – an equitable society where services (including healthcare) would be accessible to anyone regardless of social status. Healthcare, rather referred to as Freedom from want, disease and exploitation was among the six key policy drivers of the sessional paper.
This fundamental vision on universal healthcare was first conceptualized by Mzee Jomo Kenyatta’s adminstration but has been long on promises and political rhetoric despite the Constitution of Kenya 2010, United Nations charters on human rights and other key treaties and papers speaking so loudly and repeatedly on the need for accessible and affordable Healthcare for all.
Mzee passed on before the seeds he planted could fruitful, but it is now crystal clear that Kenyans will reap the fruits of the foundation laid at Independence as part of Uhuru’s legacy. The journey towards this realization has been long, with some policies like the Structural Adjustments of the 80s negatively affecting its implementation whilst being muscled up by other global charters and local initiatives.
On the second Millennium, the UN ratify the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) with a 15 year period to achieve the targets which rotated on the axis of universal primary education, reduced child mortality, improved maternal health, combating HIV/AIDs, Malaria and other infections, among others that complete the list of 8.
Kenya achieved MDG 2 on universal education in a record three years when President Kibaki rolled out Free Primary Education.Majority of the MDGs (4,5 and 6 ) revolve around healthcare and it still baffles me why we have not achieved universal health care since independence! World Health Organization asserts that all MDGs influence health and health influences the other MDGs seriatim. It is therefore a crucial area that needs focus!
After the expiry of the 2015 deadline for the SDGs, the member parties of UN sat down again and came up with a broader list of goals, the Sustainable Development Goals which ought to be achieved by 2030. Good health and sustainability is as well stressed in this document which Kenya under the junior Kenyatta ratified.
In between, another sessional paper, ‘the Vision 2030’ blueprint was drafted and the same emphasis on affordable healthcare made. Is this among the documents that have fortified Uhuru’s quest for UHC?
Our Constitution in chapter 4 gives the right to life and access to quality healthcare. No motivation gets a president working than one given by the land’s supreme law.
Despite these blueprints, only 20% of Kenyans subscribe to a form of medical insurance cover!(2014 World Bank Survey) A clear indication that a majority are still not able to access primary healthcare making it necessary to implement UHC.
Fortunately enough, President Uhuru Kenyatta is set to leave a legacy as he retires in 2022. One of the pillars of the Big 4 legacy agenda is Universal Healthcare! With its successful rollout in Kisumu, with the first Lady’s effort to improve maternal health and with the ministry of health having the capacity in workforce, capital and research through KEMRI, dissemination of drugs through KEMSA and a robust health training system, we have to be optimistic that the journey Jomo began in 1963 will be completed by his son Uhuru in 2022- the expected date for the full rollout of universal healthcare across the country.
The rollout of UHC is the only way to ensure that the undeniable right to life is guaranteed!
The Writer is a Community Mobilizer for Development and a Pan-Africanism Crusader.
donnargss@gmail.com