Achieving Universal Health Care has been at the center of various countries’ national plans for a number of years now. From discussions surrounding the Millennium Development Goals to resolutions adopted in implementing the Sustainable Development Goals, Universal Health Care has been critical to this envisioned achieving sustainable development.
While the impact of UHC will holistically be felt once we begin seeing progress of its implementation, we can somehow outline some of the benefits we believe will contribute to the economy.
Health is acknowledged as essential for human welfare and sustained economic and social development. When people have poor health, with lack of decent health services being one of the contributing factors, they often are vulnerable to poverty.
As Kenya, we believe that providing equitable and affordable health care will boost the capacity of our people to be productive and contribute effectively to the growth of our economy. As the saying goes, a healthy nation is indeed a wealthy nation.
As focus moves to building a healthy nation, we agree that this means we ensure families get the proper nutrition they need. Improved nutritional status could help achieve UHC and decrease deaths among children under 5 years, therefore increasing human development.
Access to ICT services and internet connectivity to help strengthen health information systems will create job opportunities and encourage young people to get the skills needed to fill in these gaps. Systems redesigning, improvising data generation and management and capacity building for health care workers are areas that will promote social development and help achieve Universal Health Care.
Implementing UHC will not only increase job opportunities as we get the right people with the relevant skills, but will also increase research and development and innovation in support of the attainment of UHC. We need to be able to unlock intellectual and financial resources as well as develop technological solutions that can ease access to health services and access with health practitioners.
Health Tourism is one of Vision 2030’s flagship projects that focuses on specialized medical services. As Kenya positions itself as a destination for specialized health and medical services, it means that a lot will go into providing this opportunity right from education to research and job opportunities in specialized health care. Giving Kenyans access to specialized medical services will also improve health care in the country and help us achieve Universal Health Care and increase the country’s economic development.
It’s indisputable that Universal Health Care ultimately guarantees financial protection by providing a shield against the catastrophic and impoverishing consequences of out-of-pocket expenditure, through the implementation of pooled prepaid financing systems. Ill health affects productivity and diverts households’ income to seeking health services. If UHC can be achieved, it means that funds set aside to cater for basic needs is left intact therefore alleviating poverty and contributing to sustainable development. .
It’s important that as we continue to roll out initiatives towards implementing UHC we need to be able to answer the following:
- How to move towards UHC;
- Common indicators for measuring its progress; and
- Its long-term sustainability.
Achieving Universal Health Care will be paramount to achieving Kenya’s Vision 2030 that aims to transform Kenya into a newly industrializing, middle-income country providing a high quality of life to all its citizens in a clean and secure environment.