Frontlines of My Life

Community fundraising is not an insurance policy!

Kenya is culturally diverse, comprising of over 40 different tribes. But despite our cultural differences, we are a community built on helping each other. One of the best examples of this are fundraisers, events organized to collect funds for a specific cause. Many fundraisers in Kenya are held to find money for funerals, medical bills, tuition fees or even weddings.

I have received numerous phone calls or text messages to support a fundraiser, and the majority of them have been for medical bills. High medical bills are a frequent occurrence in Kenya, for a variety of reasons: perhaps because the patient didn’t have any insurance cover at all, or just that the cover they had was not sufficient for a spell in hospital. Some hospitals outside Nairobi do not have equipment such as dialysis or cancer machines, and so patients in need of them have to come to the capital for treatment in private hospitals. The travelling back and forth, the expensive tests and then the treatments themselves are most likely not covered by health insurance. By the time patients leave hospital, they are sometimes in debt to the tune of 200,000 KSH (USD 2,000) or more. That might not seem like much, but for the millions of poorer Kenyans, earning between 104,600 KSH (USD 1,000) and 412,500 KSH (USD 4,125) per year and living from paycheck to paycheck, this amount becomes impossible to pay. This results in a fundraiser, where neighbors, family and friends gather to contribute.

These unfeasibly high costs are one of the many reasons why the public medical practitioners in Kenya have been on strike since December 5, 2016. These public sector doctors are demanding the implementation of the Collective Bargain Agreement (CBA) between the Health Ministry and representatives of Kenya’s Medical practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists’ Union, which was signed as long ago as 2013. In this Agreement, the union requested improvements to the standards of the country’s medical facilities. The ministry also pledged to “endeavor to employ at least one thousand two hundred doctors per year for the next four years to reduce the current gap in the number of doctors in the public sector.” At present, this reads for millions of Kenyans like a bad joke.

The current medical scheme cover for all adult Kenyans is basic and only covers certain hospitals and clinics, most of which are neither adequately staffed nor equipped. If they were, the fundraisers would not need to take place so often. Health Cabinet Secretary Dr. Cleopa Mailu says: \"We are open for negotiations with the doctors within the law.\" However, the doctors are refusing to settle for anything less than the improvements contained in the original Agreement.

Giving patients the opportunity to obtain treatment closer to home instead of making the long and often expensive trip to Nairobi is crucial, because fundraising is simply not a sustainable medical scheme. Nor should it be. On more than one occasion, I have found myself giving more than I had, putting my bills aside to assist the fundraiser because I felt the health of my friends was more important. But these funds that are currently being channeled to pay medical bills could be used to invest in job creation, education or business ventures, all which contribute to the economic stability of communities and ultimately the entire country.

So until the government concedes, I as a Kenyan will continue to attend fundraisers to offset medical bills. For now, the community seems to be the only health insurance we can afford.