Health, along with education, has always been one of the thorns in the side of Kenya's administrations since its independence.
The public clinical-hospital service has often proved insufficient to meet the demands of the people in need of care, without adequate equipment and trained staff, and with dilapidated or dilapidated facilities. In recent years there has been a marked improvement, but the fact remains that those in Kenya who really want to save their skin or prevent certain diseases from degenerating, have to turn to the private sector, with costs that poor people obviously cannot afford.

The launch of Universal Health Coverage by the Kenyan government, which officially took place last week, is one of the pillars of the Ruto administration and represents the ultimate attempt to provide the population with affordable and accessible health care.

The first phase of the programme aims to abolish all fees for patients at local health centres and referral hospitals, the second to create a social health insurance scheme by revolutionising the old 'National Health Insurance Fund' (NHIF) and creating the 'Social Health Insurance Fund' and those for Emergencies, Chronic and Critical Illness.

But apart from the administrative and legal changes, the counties, building on the past where health improvement projects failed, are demanding that government increase the budget allocation for the sector, increase human resources and rationalise the referral systems, especially from county to national hospitals.
In short, a huge amount of work that it is not clear with what public money it can be done, in a country that is facing a serious liquidity crisis, even though there is no lack of conditions for economic growth.

In the meantime, the government has increased the number of volunteers and health workers and renewed the community health units. As a result, visits to the health centres by residents have increased and the Ministry of Health estimated the number of visits at 3.2 million last year.

Ruto, however, also looks to China as a resolution to bring low-cost private healthcare to his country, accessible to more people than at present. On his recent trip to Beijing, where he met with the Chinese government leadership during an international forum also attended by Russian President Vladimir Putin, Ruto signed an agreement with a Chinese company, Zhende Medical, which says it is ready to invest around 180 million dollars to build the largest healthcare facility in East Africa outside Nairobi.
The Chinese company intends to hire 7,000 Kenyan workers and has set itself the goal of exporting medical supplies to sub-Saharan Africa worth about $320 million a year.