Verity Media Network

Suitable for All

HEALTH CARE

Poverty, Life or Death

19 Aug, 2024
00 min 00 sec
Features Features
Suitable for All

Every month about 20 percent of Kenya’s population or 9 million people, experience an illness. About 7.8 million of these individuals will seek care at one of over 10,000 facilities in Kenya. For both patients and providers, there is struggle in this churn of illness and care seeking – the uncertainty and worry that accompanies disease, the difficulty of finding money to pay for care, caring for patients when staff, medicines or equipment are in short supply, coping with the loss of a loved one. Health equity arises from access to the social determinants of health, specifically from wealth, power and prestige. Individuals who have been deprived of these determinants are disadvantaged from health inequities, face worse health outcomes and even death. Poverty which leads to lack of finances has made health care access impossible and health insurances unaffordable. These therefore results to death of patients, for example, cancer treatment or kidney dialysis which are much expensive for the low-income earners or unemployed individuals. Some patients in Kenya meet death at their door steps when they don’t get treatment due to lack of equipment at there local facilities. While others die due to excessive time spent waiting for their diagnostic or treatment scheduled appointments.