Public Health Financing Policy: The Case of Baringo County-Kenya

International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS) | Volume IV, Issue VIII, August 2020 | ISSN 2454–6186

Public Health Financing Policy: The Case of Baringo County-Kenya

Wilfred Rotich Chacha¹, Shadrack Kipkoech Sitienei²

¹PhD Candidate (Political Sciences and Public Administration) Moi University and A lecturer at Kisii University-Kenya
²PhD Candidate (Political Sciences and Public Administration) and lectures at Moi University-Kenya

Abstract: Health financing refers to how financial resources are used to ensure that the health system can adequately cover the collective health needs of every person in a state. The paper was guided by the following two objectives; to examine the public health financing policy in Baringo County, and to find out the quality of services rendered in the public health facilities in the county. The researcher adopted a qualitative study technique and an interview schedule to collect the data, frequencies and percentages were used to analyse and interpret the data to arrive at logical conclusions. The geographical scope of the study covers Baringo County in Kenya, while the time scope 2003-2005. The authors found that the cost-sharing policy has not been effective since majority of the population are unable to pay due to poverty. In addition, there is inadequacy in finances both from the Central and the County government which affects the quality of health care delivery to the population. Finally, the Central government should restructure the public health care insurance popularly called NHIF, to accommodate outpatient services and to cater for the less privileged members of the society.

Key words: Public health, Health care, Finance, Policy, County government, Central government

I. BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Health policies have been of crucial concern to various institutions, scholars, policy makers and communities’ worldwide. Critical to health systems in the world is arriving at a common understanding on what should constitute a health system of a given population. Unfortunately, there is no agreement on ‘what’ should be distributed equally (Culyer, 2001).There is a fair consensus that a fair distribution of healthcare is a more realistic objective of health system than a fair distribution of health. This is based on the argument that equity in health suggests equality in health outcome, and there are numerous factors that affect health status that are outside the locus of health system (Whitehead, 1992).

In the continental Africa, health issues have negatively impacted on socio-economic development. As Cooke (2009) notes, nowhere are global public health’s more acute than in Africa. The continents immense disease burden and frail health system are embedded in broader context of poverty, underdevelopment, conflicts and weak or ill-managed government institutions. One of the major constrain in health sector is inadequacy and gaps finances

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