OPINION: To empower women, we must invest in their health - Health CS Susan Nakhumincha

A 2024 World Economic Forum report reveals startling data on women’s health. According to the report, 25% of women spend 25% more time in poor health than men.

The report argues that addressing women’s health gap could generate the equivalent impact of 137 million women accessing full-time positions by 2040 and makes the case that this would boost the global economy by $1 trillion annually – a 1.7% increase in per capita gross domestic product (GDP).

Early this year I had the honour to be appointed to serve on the board of the World Economic Forum Global Alliance for Women's Health.

This appointment not only gives me a unique platform to elevate health issues facing women, especially on the African continent but also an opportunity to reflect on our health situation.

Kenya has prioritized Universal Health Coverage and investment in primary health care as the vehicle for advancing health equity and ensuring that no open is left behind.

While we scale up these efforts, it is important to keep an eye on health disparities underpinned by gender inequalities as a key barrier.

Data shows that Kenyan women carry a disproportionately bigger health burden with maternal deaths, HIV, cancer, and malaria among some of the leading health challenges.

The current maternal mortality stands at 355 deaths per 100,000 live births twice as many women (4.9%) are living with HIV than men (2.4%).

Maternal mortality and morbidity (which refers to any short or long-term health complications arising from pregnancy and childbirth, which can lead to death) has been declining over the past decade from 488 according to the Kenya Demographic Survey of 2009 to 355 in the 2019 census.

However, many of these deaths are preventable as they are a result of poor access to quality healthcare.

To address these issues, the government is collaborating with all stakeholders to re-engineer our healthcare and shift our investment from curative to promotive and preventive.

Indeed, the government of H.E. President Dr William Ruto has made this shift a key priority as part of our push towards the realization of UHC.

Access to family planning and increasing use of contraceptives to address unplanned pregnancies has been a key focus of the ministry’s efforts to reduce maternal deaths and this has seen an increase in contraceptive prevalence from 39%in 2009 to 58% in 2022. The ministry aims to attain a 62% contraceptive prevalence rate by 2030.

Under the UHC 2020-2030 strategy one of the key targets is to expand the population covered by health services with a focus on the underserved, marginalized and vulnerable populations.

I passionately believe that women and girls are a key vulnerable group that we must deliberately target.

In September 2023, President Ruto launched a workforce of 100,000 dedicated community health promoters, each equipped with essential knowledge and tools.

These health promoters are now playing a pivotal role in implementing the Community Health Strategy, essential for realizing primary healthcare goals.

Another major driving force to the realization of UHC is adequate financing and directing resources to where they are most needed- at the primary healthcare level.

To address this the government is rolling out the Social Health Insurance Fund and the establishment of the Social Health Authority.

Under the current National Health Insurance Fund arrangement, most women are not covered largely because they cannot afford the premiums required.

A major advantage of the Social Health Insurance Fund is that it provides comprehensive medical coverage from the primary healthcare level and extends benefits covering beneficiaries who have exhausted their covers.

Whereas these government-led policy efforts are critical in setting the pace, I strongly believe in building strong partnerships.

For example, appreciating the unique needs of women, the public and private sectors must work together to develop and advance innovations that specifically target addressing women’s health issues.

The World Health Organization has underscored the need to promote gender equality in health with a call to countries to mainstream gender in health through the development of gender-responsive health policies.

Beyond such policies, there is a need to implement programs to strengthen the health sector's response to gender-based violence and address gender equality in health workforce development as well as gender-related barriers to health services.

It is a fact that when women thrive, communities thrive and our statistics and those from the World Economic Forum clearly show that the major obstacle to women’s progress socially and economically is their poor state of health.

We must, therefore, continue investing in women’s health so that our women can focus on pursuing economic empowerment.

The writer is the Cabinet Secretary for Health