According to the World Health Organization (WHO), Kenya “faces a disease burden” including communicable and non-communicable conditions as well as violence and injuries.  This situation has probably been made dire by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.   Available statistics show that although HIV/AIDS prevalence is on a downward trend, it is still estimated to cause the highest proportion of deaths. The country faces a high neonatal mortality rate. Lower respiratory infections are a major cause of mortality and morbidity, particularly among children under the age of five.  Diarrheal diseases remain one of the major causes of childhood morbidity and mortality, while malaria accounts for 30% of total outpatient morbidity. Cardiovascular diseases and cancer are the second and third leading causes of death, respectively. In addition, the estimated prevalence of diabetes in the population aged between 20 and 79 years is 4.7%. Moreover, the country faces high fatality rates due to road traffic crashes in excess of 3,000 deaths annually.

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Although the Constitution provides for the right to healthcare and the Kenya Health Policy aims to have Universal Healthcare (UHC) for all, this remains aspirational.  The devolution of healthcare to County Governments has placed a strain to existing resources with the Central Government neglecting health facilities and healthcare workers. The ratio of health workers per 10,000 population is generally low across all cadres, especially regarding key professionals:  doctors (0.54), dentists (0.04) and pharmacists (0.13) and slightly higher regarding clinical officers (1.13) and nurses (3.41). The privatization of healthcare has increased the cost of these services making then inaccessible to large parts of the population. The Kenya Demographic and Health Survey (2014), notes that women’s economic empowerment is positively correlated with most of the health indicators. Women are better able to make decisions concerning their health when they are empowered, particularly economic empowerment.

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The Akombe foundation works on access to healthcare by setting up community clinics to provide preventative screening, educate the community on how to manage chronic diseases such as diabetes, hypertension and HIV/AIDS and disease prevention. The Foundation works with county governments to ensure that citizens have access to free or affordable healthcare. The Foundation also supports initiatives aimed at ensuring that healthcare community centers are well equipped to serve the community’s healthcare needs. It also works on supporting community hospitals with skills and equipment to enable them to handle complex medical cases to minimize unnecessary travel to urban areas for treatment. Emphasis is made on providing competitive salaries for the doctors, pharmacists and nurses to prevent shortages that lead to lack of community access to medical care. Studies have shown that economic empowerment of women leads to better health outcomes for the society. The Akombe Foundation works with state and local governments to provide more employment opportunities for women and invest in women’s healthcare. This is done through financially supporting women-run small business and providing more healthcare education to women groups.