Covid-19 crisis pushes health budget to Sh116b, says Yatani
As the government steps up the fight against Covid-19 virus, expenditure on health is expected to rise to Sh116 billion in the financial year 2019/2020, representing a 51 per cent increase.
Releasing the Economic Survey 2020, National Treasury Cabinet Secretary Ukur Yatani said Health expenditure in 2018/19 was Sh76.7 billion.
The 2019/20 development expenditure accounts for 56.2 per cent.
The increase according to Yattani was due to Universal Health Coverage (UHC), one of the Government’s Big Four Agenda aimed at ensuring access to affordable healthcare for all Kenyans.
Other parameters are the government’s provision of free maternity services in public hospitals to improve maternal and child health.
“The number of deliveries in health facilities increased by 4.1 per cent to 1.15 million in 2019 with caesarean section accounting for 14.9 per cent,” he said.
Registered births increased marginally by 3.5 per cent to 1,178,260 in 2019, with 96.3 per cent of the registered births occurring in health facilities.
In counties, which are equally combating Covid-19, expenditure on health services is expected to grow by 24.6 per cent to Sh114.7 billion in 2019/20.
The ratio of government expenditure on health to its total expenditure is expected to be 7.1 per cent in 2019/20.
Total disease incidences as reported by public health facilities increased by 17.3 per cent to 87.8 million in 2019.
With Kenya total number of confirmed Covid-19, a respiratory disease cases rose to 374 on Tuesday, the survey showed respiratory diseases topped the list of deaths.
In 2019, respiratory system diseases was the leading cause of death at 25.0 per cent of all disease incidences.
“Confirmed malaria cases increased by 18.6 per cent to 4.7 million in 2019, with the lake stable endemic zone accounting for largest number of cases at 74.4 per cent,” said Yattani.
Low-risk zone
A similar trend was observed in the malaria incidents. The lake stable zone reported 366 cases per 1,000 population compared with the low-risk zone that reported six cases per 1,000.
On number of nurses, the survey showed in 2019, the number of registered nurses increased by 1.2 per cent to stand at 58,247, raising the number of registered health personnel per 100,000 population.
Total National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF) membership increased by 10.5 per cent to 8.5 million in 2018/19.
Receipts grew by 22.0 per cent to Sh 58.0 billion in 2018/19 while payouts increased by 36.8 per cent to Sh 53.4 billion.
The number of health facilities in the country increased by 5.2 per cent to 13,790 in 2019 with level 2 facilities accounting for 77.4 per cent of the total facilities.
Levels 4, 5, and 6 hospitals collectively accounted for 5.8 per cent of the total facilities.
