When on January 29th, 2023, I went into google and keyed “Cancer Statistics in Kenya” the following information popped up,
“The risk of developing cancer before the age of 75 years (%) in Kenya is 18% among women and 14.3% among men while the risk of dying from cancer by the same age is 12.7% in women compared with 10.3% in men. The five commonest cancers in Kenya for both sexes are breast, cervical, prostate, esophageal, and colorectal.” Read More: (chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.health.go.ke/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/National-Cancer-Taskforce-Report-July-2022.pdf)
The continued uncertainty of whether the National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) will pay for a particular ailment or not, and the ir-reliability of information on how much they pay, slums the spanner into the wax even more.
The continued unclear divisions of Kenyans into Civil Servants versus those in private practice; those that are uniformed versus those that are un-uniformed, amidst many other dichotomies, continue to add to the confusion on who and what exactly NHIF covers.
Who and what does it cover and to what extent?
Is there a way that this information could be put in the public, to allow the contributors to make informed choices?
Essentially, unclear information lays fertile ground for corruption. When a contributor seeks a health service, it is often at a time when they are struggling with pain, with psychological uncertainty following the doctor’s information, and with worries of whether he/she (or whether their patient family member) will survive; often, the person, and those near the person) is/are not themselves. When such an issue involves a terminal illness, and in this case Cancer, (irrespective of its stage), fear is sunk into the individual and in all those around the person.
On this day, when again we reflect on Cancer, we keep in mind, survivors, mourners, and all others who fall in the category of the “not yet”.
We are invited to join hands as we consider ways in which our health insurance schemes can and should be improved.
To the present times, the facilitation of health funds is a channel of immense corruption as we saw and heard in the famous “COVID billionaires”.
How many Cancer billionaires are we continuing to create? How many health billionaires still go unnoticed? How much longer do some enrich themselves with the blood and lives of fellow Kenyans, yet remain at the forefront of being wonderful leaders, Christians, and believers?
It is good to keep inviting people to go for regular screenings.
Evidently, though, information is out in the winds that some prefer not to know their status, for once they know, the death knell is sounded. In this country, such identification may mean the start of the dwindling of family resources, for taking care of health matters, remains an insurmountable and slippery uphill task.
A country that decides to trade and enrich its individuals through its people’s livelihoods is headed for damnation. Such is what we are constantly yet shrewdly doing when we trade with our people’s health and sadly, education.
How much longer are our leaders going to play cat-rat chase, with the lives of their citizens? How much more will Civil Societies focus on charity, rather than on justice which entails the right for each to have access to affordable health care?
Cries are out in the air yet once again on this special day; let us reconsider our stands concerning Cancer!
Let us expedite our care to ensure that health is given its rightful concern and care!
What a pity, that in the third world that we are part of, we continue to have misplaced priorities of focusing on politics, on who is leading and who is not, even when the leaders continue to enjoy the fruits of good health care, at the expense of the masses.
Let us focus on what matters, rather than on what is deceitfully sold to the poor, as what matters!
