02.02.07.01. What proportion of the population incurs out-of-pocket expenses to access health services? | Kenya

02.02.07.01. What proportion of the population incurs out-of-pocket expenses to access health services? | Kenya

03 Mar 2022

The number of patients who for pay health services out of pocket is very high. It amounted to 26.11% out of the total health expenditure in 2014 (Index Mundi, 2019a). The high costs incurred from out-of-pocket health expenditure pose a barrier for Kenyans accessing healthcare services because it drives the poorer households into poverty. The costs of treatment continue to limit the access of care especially by the poor. The Ministry of Health estimates that 16% of the sick do not seek treatment due to financial constraints, while 38% of them must sell some of their assets or borrow in order to finance their medical bills (Luoma et al., 2010). In Kenya, one has to directly pay for health services at the point of consumption. This led to 7.1% of households in Kenya to face catastrophic expenditures and increased the poverty head count by 2.2% due to OOP payments in 2018 (Salari et al., 2019).

References:

IndexMundi. (2019a). Kenya – Out-of-pocket health expenditure (% of total expenditure on health). https://www.indexmundi.com/kenya/health_expenditures.html

Luoma, M., Doherty, J., Muchiri, S., Barasa, T., Hofler, K., Maniscalco, L., … Maundu, J. (2010). Kenya Health System Assessment 2010. Health Systems 20/20 Project, 20(August), 1–133. https://www.hfgproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Kenya-Health-Systems-Assessment-2010.pdf

Salari, P., Di Giorgio, L., Ilinca, S., & Chuma, J. (2019). The catastrophic and impoverishing effects of out-of-pocket healthcare payments in Kenya, 2018. BMJ Global Health, 4(6). https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2019-001809