Kenya Boosts Funding for Local Health Workers to Fight Chronic Illnesses

2026-09-03 services

Nairobi, 3 September 2026
To combat rising chronic illnesses, Kenya is heavily investing in grassroots health promoters after recent screenings revealed over 1.7 million cases of diabetes and high blood pressure.

Grassroots Mobilisation Against Chronic Diseases

In a decisive move to address the growing burden of non-communicable diseases across Kenya, the government has heavily prioritised grassroots healthcare delivery [2]. Speaking on 1 September 2026, the Principal Secretary for the State Department for Medical Services, Dr Ouma Oluga, highlighted substantial national investments in Community Health Promoters (CHPs) to lead local disease surveillance and management [2]. This grassroots focus is driven by stark screening data: out of 9 million diabetes tests conducted, approximately 800,000 cases were positive, representing a positivity rate of 8.889 per cent [2]. Furthermore, blood pressure screenings identified 900,000 cases of high blood pressure out of 4.5 million tests, yielding a positivity rate of 20 per cent [2].

Ensuring Local Service Continuity and Funding Flow

To maintain the momentum of these primary healthcare interventions, Dr Oluga has urged county governments to act responsibly with national resources [1]. He emphasised that patients must not suffer due to administrative delays in paying local health workers, insisting that counties must promptly utilise the funds disbursed by the national government to settle salaries [1]. This financial discipline is critical for sustaining community-level health services, particularly in vulnerable and refugee-hosting regions such as Turkana County, where local health workers form the primary line of defence against chronic and infectious diseases alike [GPT].

Alongside chronic disease management, maternal health remains a central pillar of the government’s healthcare strategy. Approximately 1.3 million mothers have received crucial treatment under the Social Health Authority (SHA) cover [4][6][7]. Despite this progress, significant gaps persist; Dr Oluga noted that only 58 per cent of expectant mothers attended antenatal clinics last year [4][6][7]. To bridge this gap and improve clinic attendance, the government has allocated KSh 4 billion through the SHA specifically to cover maternal healthcare services [4][6][7].

The Every Woman Every Newborn Everywhere Plan

Further reinforcing this commitment, Dr Oluga chaired a crucial subcommittee meeting on 1 September 2026 at Afya House in Nairobi to advance the ‘Every Woman Every Newborn Everywhere Acceleration Plan 2026–2028’ [8]. This multi-sectoral initiative aims to eliminate barriers preventing mothers from seeking timely care and accessing quality facilities [8]. To ensure the plan’s success, the government has committed KSh 12.5 billion to support vital interventions, which include recruiting 5,000 new nurses and securing essential, life-saving medical commodities [8].

Resolving Human Resource Bottlenecks in the Health Sector

The sustainability of these expansive programmes relies heavily on a stable and motivated medical workforce. On 2 September 2026, Dr Oluga explained how the government successfully resolved the long-running medical intern deployment stalemate, which had previously seen interns protesting at Afya House [5]. For the first time, the government has secured a full allocation of KSh 9.8 billion in the national budget to ensure all interns are deployed and paid in strict accordance with their Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) at the start of the financial year [5].

Scaling Up Clinical Staffing and Training

This budgetary allocation has enabled the government to scale up the number of medical interns to approximately 7,000 in 2026, marking a growth of 11.111 per cent from the roughly 6,300 interns recorded in 2025 [5]. To prevent future budgetary friction, the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Education have established a structured three-year projection system with local universities to forecast student graduation numbers [5]. This is complemented by the recruitment of nearly 18,000 healthcare workers to date, though officials acknowledge that further hiring remains necessary to meet the country’s growing public health demands [5].

Bronnen

Community health Healthcare funding