Health team chair wants health sector ‘mistakes’ corrected
By George Kebaso, August 9, 2024The National Assembly’s Health Committee chairman, Robert Pukose, is advocating for the costing of healthcare to correct past mistakes that have led to poor delivery of services in the sector.
Speaking at a forum hosted by Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) in the health sector, Dr Pukose said if costing was done during the devolution of the health function, almost a decade ago, Kenya could have got it right in the delivery of healthcare services.
It could have also given the country a clear picture of what was to be devolved, and what could have remained at the national level.
“During the process of devolving health to the counties, the question that popped up all the time, is; we are devolving health, have we done the costing?” he posed, adding that nobody gave an answer for that- from both the Transition Authority (TA), headed then by Kinuthia wa Mwangi and the Commission for Revenue Allocation (CRA).
Dr Pukose, the Endebess MP, regrets however, that missed opportunity has seen exchequer resources allocated for health to the counties ending up in other programmes.
Devolved functions
“If at that time we had done the costing of health functions that were going to be devolved, we could have got it right from the beginning,” he said, explaining that this could have helped the country know what every devolved function was to cost.
He said that without that, governors decided to redirect whatever resources they received and are getting even today non-priorities, such as building many offices that were irrelevant, just as an example.
“It became the norm up to today, and health did not get what it deserves,” he noted, reflecting that if the costing had been immediately, it could have been easy to know what was to be done. Largely, he noted that’s where the country got it wrong, and cautioned that if this is not rectified on time, it might be disastrous as the donors have given Kenya up to 2030, to close their funding taps.
Therefore, he suggested that for the country to be able to get resource mobilisation properly, there is a need for the country to understand the cost of offering healthcare at the counties. He also raised issue with the recent rejection of the Finance Bill 2024, saying this has far-reaching ramifications as the document had the solutions needed for domestic financing for health.