Our healthcare system went to the dogs long ago

Healthcare constitutes part of President Uhuru Kenyatta’s Big Four agenda, and rightly so. Ours is a dysfunctional health care system that unwittingly contributes to poverty in the country. Families have, and continue to dispose of property, land in particular, to raise funds for treatment.

The deterioration of medical services can be traced to the advent of cost-sharing in public hospitals, but later became more apparent with devolution. Doctors, evidently, did not buy into the idea of devolving healthcare, but their objections were resisted by Governors who insisted they could effectively manage the docket but found-to their consternation-that there was much to it than merely tucking it under their wings. Like the security docket, health should not have been devolved to counties, at least not when most of them were groping in the dark and trying to find their footing.