Inadequate funding to blame for healthcare crisis, unions say

Kenya Union of Clinical Officers (KUCO) National Chairman Peterson Wachira and Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union (KMPDU) Secretary-General and CEO Davji Atellah during an interview at Spice FM, August 21,2026 [Benard Orwongo, Standard]

Kenya’s healthcare challenges are largely due to inadequate and delayed financing, health union officials have said.

Speaking during an interview on Spice FM on Friday, Kenya Union of Clinical Officers (KUCO) National Chairman Peterson Wachira and Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union (KMPDU) Secretary-General and CEO Davji Atellah warned that reforms will struggle to deliver better care without sufficient resources.

Wachira said nearly every aspect of healthcare is affected when facilities lack adequate and timely funding, and urged the government to prioritise healthcare financing, budgeting and implementation of existing reforms, particularly at the primary healthcare level.

“The challenge comes in at the primary healthcare level because it is funded by the Exchequer, which has not been able to fund it to where it is supposed to be,” Wachira said.

Reiterating his remarks, Atellah said financing was critical to ensuring health facilities could continue providing care, particularly where they depend on reimbursements.

He said patients with insurance should not be denied treatment because of delays in payments to health facilities, arguing that the government needed a mechanism to ensure facilities receive money owed to them.

“A patient who has insurance and comes to a hospital should not be denied care, but we must have a mechanism that ensures that the debt owed to facilities, whether private or public, is paid so that people can get the care they need,” he said.

Wachira said delayed payments also affect medical facilities, which may be reluctant to raise concerns for fear of losing contracts.

“The reality of healthcare is money. The difference between private and public facilities is that, for private facilities, healthcare is a business and when there are delays, the impact is different from what we see in the public sector,” he said.

“Facilities fear raising their voices because they are scared of losing contracts. We need to have enough money so that people are reimbursed early and paid on time and medical facilities have enough stock,” he added.

Wachira also raised concerns over the shortage of health workers, which he said threatens efforts to achieve Universal Health Coverage.

“Parliament must ensure that we have enough money and we also need to reach a point where we make deliberate efforts to have annual appointments and employment of health workers,” he said.

He proposed closer cooperation between the national and county governments to address the shortage of health workers.

“We can actually have an entity without going through a referendum. County and national government can come together and form a joint cooperation to take care of the Human Resources for Health,” said the KUCO chairperson.

The remarks come days after the Kenya Health Summit, held on August 18 and 19 at the Kenyatta International Convention Centre (KICC) in Nairobi, where health workers and other stakeholders engaged the government on challenges facing the sector.

During the summit, President William Ruto directed national and county government officials, alongside the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC), to resolve delays in payment of health workers’ salaries and engage the commission over unimplemented Collective Bargaining Agreements.