Unhealthy nation: Government has no shame in distributing contaminated medication

There is this thing that the government and its functionaries keep talking about daily as if they can see it or feel it.

No, it is not Kenya’s rate of economic growth. That one is history. They spoke about it for years, and when they realised no one was listening, or that they could not put a finger on it, they stopped.

This new talk is about healthcare. It is not even new. It has been going on for decades but in the past three or so years, it acquired a new name.

Like all the things the government and its functionaries talk about, this one is also supposed to improve Kenyans’ quality of life, or make their lives easier.

Maybe I should stop calling them some things. They are policy statements. Or political statements, which, ironically are not backed by political goodwill since they fail when politicians start bickering and do not agree on how to implement them.

The current talking point is Universal Health Coverage. It sounds stupendous when they speak about it, and they make it sound as the silver bullet for all the disasters they have caused with their thieving ways.

Kenyans are told where it has worked, where it is working, how it was implemented and how it will be achieved locally — and then unverifiable half-truths are given on its success in the counties it was piloted.

Statistics are dropped, and half-hearted health programmes that were never fully implemented are mentioned as part of piloting success, and how well it is progressing.

But at the same time, statistics from the government’s national bureau of statistics or daily happenings in health facilities or generally in the health sector, paint a different picture as much as they portray failure.

By any lay person’s standards, UHC must involve medication or pharmaceuticals even when the diagnostic equipment is rudimentary.

But daily, most of the stories about healthcare in Kenya revolve around expired drugs that are in circulation or in stores.

Sadly, the culprit is not private health entities, but the government which, whether UHC is achieved, should be the first entity in safeguarding the wellbeing of Kenyans.

Most, actually, all of the time, the drugs do not expire, or are handled poorly by private hires, but by those employed or contracted by the government and when they are under the custody of the government.

Several months ago, there was a push and pull between the State and a donor agency over medication and test kits that were almost expiring at the port of Mombasa.

The two could not reach an agreement when it came to taxation and distribution channels.

For almost a year, Kenyans who rely on life saving medication could not get the basic first line of defence that protects them from opportunistic infections because the Health ministry could not get its act together.

Many patients who rely on government supply, and who many a time do not have extra means of support, had to dig deeper into their empty pockets to buy the drugs.

During that time, there were reports that vaccines had expired at another port of entry because they had not been cleared for distribution, or something of that kind.

Mid last month, it emerged that the medical supplies authority — the body that is infamous for awarding multi-billion shilling tenders to passers-by — had recalled birth control implants because they had been contaminated and mold had grown on them.

The authority happily announced that it noticed the consignment was contaminated during its market surveillance and quality assurance process.

That is odd, almost silly because it is the authority that distributed the implants, with the knowledge that they had been at the port for several months because the “government failed to allocate a budget for tax clearance” as our Health and Science writer Mercy Kahenda learnt from an official at the Health ministry.

Ironically, that is the implementing ministry for UHC, and yet it is the one that released the implants to the medical supplies agency for distribution and directed that they be sent to four counties.

It beats logic, or just common sense that the ministry in charge of implementing UHC, or making sure that it succeeds, cannot get its ducks in a row, and keeps fumbling when it comes to clearing and handling medication and pharmaceuticals.

Stories of failure by the Health ministry, actually the government, to supply drugs and pharmaceuticals, abound even as it talks big about achieving UHC in the shortest time possible.

Even though there are sections of Kenya’s healthcare system which show some glimmer of hope, the rotten areas dim them out completely, and reveal that the future is indeed bleak, and that any talk about achieving UHC is nothing but hot air.

Sadly, there is no help in sight because the Health Committees of both Houses of Parliament, which can articulate health matters for proper debate in the Houses which can lead to better healthcare system for Kenyans, are as useless as the expired drugs — only that they are more toxic because they are politicians.