1.1 Background of the study
Health systems in low and middle-income countries continue to face considerable challenges in providing high-quality, affordable and universally accessible health care and information. Most of the developing countries are not able to adequately offer quality healthcare to its citizen. There are very few healthcare facilities in rural areas, of which most of them are poorly equipped and also few trained healthcare providers.
In Kenya, the situation is no different. There are only a few hospitals per region where reliable medical services can be found. People have to travel long distances to get medical attention and this turns to be costly and time consuming. We have Kenyatta National hospital as the main referral …show more content…
The governance structure shifted from a central government to devolved governance defining forty seven counties. In the year 2013, the new county governments came in place after the elections and every county elected the governor and the members of county assembly who are law makers in each county. Also, a second branch of legislative assembly was set up comprised of senators who are county representatives at the national level, mandated to safeguard the devolution. The counties are funded by the national treasury and also through the revenue collected from the counties. Looking at the counties, one realizes that there is great disparities in terms of resources and facilities such as roads, water, schools, hospitals etc. This means that there is need for the county governance to come up with ways of enhancing access to these scarce resources. Health is very vital to people and the county governments have a challenge in bridging the gap that exist including disparities in access between the urban and rural areas and especially the remote areas; the inadequacies of the health infrastructure across the counties and country at large; the shortages of the human resources for health; the high cost of accessing health for majority of the Kenyans and the limitations in the availability of financial resources. It is a challenge to people living in rural areas or some remote counties as compared to those living in urban. You may find that in a county, there is only one hospital which is well equipped with the personnel and other medical resources, though there are dispensaries and lower level hospitals and health centers but they are not staffed with medical personnel, nor are they equipped with effective diagnostic equipment. This means that many times patients have to be referred and have to travel long distances and this may take several days
Health systems in low and middle-income countries continue to face considerable challenges in providing high-quality, affordable and universally accessible health care and information. Most of the developing countries are not able to adequately offer quality healthcare to its citizen. There are very few healthcare facilities in rural areas, of which most of them are poorly equipped and also few trained healthcare providers.
In Kenya, the situation is no different. There are only a few hospitals per region where reliable medical services can be found. People have to travel long distances to get medical attention and this turns to be costly and time consuming. We have Kenyatta National hospital as the main referral …show more content…
The governance structure shifted from a central government to devolved governance defining forty seven counties. In the year 2013, the new county governments came in place after the elections and every county elected the governor and the members of county assembly who are law makers in each county. Also, a second branch of legislative assembly was set up comprised of senators who are county representatives at the national level, mandated to safeguard the devolution. The counties are funded by the national treasury and also through the revenue collected from the counties. Looking at the counties, one realizes that there is great disparities in terms of resources and facilities such as roads, water, schools, hospitals etc. This means that there is need for the county governance to come up with ways of enhancing access to these scarce resources. Health is very vital to people and the county governments have a challenge in bridging the gap that exist including disparities in access between the urban and rural areas and especially the remote areas; the inadequacies of the health infrastructure across the counties and country at large; the shortages of the human resources for health; the high cost of accessing health for majority of the Kenyans and the limitations in the availability of financial resources. It is a challenge to people living in rural areas or some remote counties as compared to those living in urban. You may find that in a county, there is only one hospital which is well equipped with the personnel and other medical resources, though there are dispensaries and lower level hospitals and health centers but they are not staffed with medical personnel, nor are they equipped with effective diagnostic equipment. This means that many times patients have to be referred and have to travel long distances and this may take several days