HEALTH CARE INEQUALITY IN KENYA.

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought to surface a number of inequalities around the globe. Poverty levels, poor health care, corruption and most importantly the income inequality gap which seems to widen day by day have been put on display by the pandemic. In my opinion, the pandemic did shine alight on the social issues that are plaguing as a society and how a number of individuals are contributing to this.

Health equity is equal access to health services according to their needs. Citizens of a country have equal use of services according to their needs and they receive equal quality of care regardless of where they live, their gender, age, occupation, race, religion, level of education, social connections, income level, (dis)ability or sexual orientation. With the gap between the rich and poor in Kenya at 8.300, health care inequality is very much expected. A number of factors accelerate and facilitate income inequality in the country the main one being corruption. However, in the most recent Kenyan DHS (2014) differences in the use of health services are described based on a person’s location, poverty level, education level, gender and age. Kenya continues to under-invest in health. Despite having signed up to the Abuja declaration (2001) and committed to allocate 15% of the national GDP on health, spending for health in Kenya is consistently below 5%. As a consequence of low government investment in health, people are forced to pay for health care. This is sometimes termed out of pocket (OOP) payments for health services, with OOP payments accounting for almost a quarter of all health expenditure in 2010. This regressive form of financing for health means the poorest and most vulnerable end up bearing the greatest burden, pushing many into impoverishment as they pay for healthcare.