Health

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The health function is a critical element to the welfare and prosperity of an individual and a country. In fact, an improvement in a country's economy, health and welfare of it's people is one of the key indexes used to assess the economic performance of a country.

While health spending has increased dramatically worldwide, many countries including Kenya struggle to offer affordable quality health services to its citizens. However, the government is committed to to providing Universal Coverage and this was first demonstrated in 2013 following the waiver of payments for primary and maternity health services in public health facilities.

Despite this, the health sector in Kenya is marred with various problems such as underfunding, poor quality care and understaffed health facilities which lead to overcrowding and limited service provision. In addition, there is a huge disparity in the delivery of health services between rural and urban areas as indicated in the Devolution of Healthcare Services in Kenya a 2013 report by KPMG. The report says that approximately 78per percent of Kenyans live in rural areas, a disproportionate share of healthcare facilities is located in urban areas.

One of the ways the government hopes to overcome these and other problems in the health sector is through devolution. This means that rather than healthcare being a national government responsibility, it will be handled by the county governments. The counties will bear the overall responsibilities for planning, financing, coordinating, delivery and monitoring health services towards the fulfillment of the constitutional right to attain the highest health standards. The national government will only be in charge of national refferral facilities such as Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH) while counties are in charge of county health services.

Many Kenyans hoped devolution would address the persistent regional disparities in the distribution of health services and inequality in resource allocations. However, this may take a while if the current valid levels of preparedness within the counties is anything to go by. Some counties that are relatively disadvantaged will take a little time to build the capacity in ability to use developed resources well, but the fact that planning is supposed to take place at the county level means that expectation is that counties will prioritize and address local needs.

Ironically, some of these problems are very same ones that the national government faced from time to time and were often highlighted in the media. For instance, finance seems to be a constant thorn considering the strikes and threats of strikes by health care workers, claims of delayed salaries and poor working conditions.
 
It's a very powerful article now the people can base out their reasoning and see that key indexes used to assess the performance of a country are ;improvements in country's economy and improvement of welfare and health of it's people. If the government agrees to share responsibilities with the county government then it will be more easier and affordable to manage. The devolution step will aid alot in solving the problems of underfunding, poor quality care and understaffed health facilities across the country mostly affecting the health sector.
 
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