By Onyimbi Nelson

The recent national power outage exposed a weakness in our health and other department’s infrastructure that could prove costly unless mitigated promptly. The fact that even national referral hospitals are susceptible to a repeat occurrence leaves a loophole to be tightened to ensure the constitutional provision for article 43 of the Constitution of Kenya, 2010, which guarantees every citizen the right to the highest attainable standards of health, is attainable.

Given the centrality of health, the national power outage may have caused a lot of damage and loss of lives that may not have been quantified, and the dependence of other sectors to a well-running health system cannot be overstated. In as much as the failures of other health end up at the doors of health, for example, a mishap in the procurement or finance sectors can mean essential medication does not reach patients in time, it remains one of the sectors that cannot be permissive to mistakes. A large number of patients at any given time in hospitals across the country are admitted in intensive care units under high-dependence care using life support machines, as well as refrigerator-preserved blood and medical supplies. The number of patients undergoing dialysis or on ventilators and pre-term babies in incubators may have been exposed to life-threatening circumstances, and the dependence of electricity to ensure sterility of equipment and surfaces to prevent infections may have been breached. Some patients are also prescribed a certain amount of light, ventilation, or air supply, and a power blackout compromises these conditions. With the risk of another power blackout, patient and facility data may also be compromised, including financial and health records, which may be lost and lead to reduced quality of the health services. 

In order to maximize service provision in health, it is important to ensure that critical services such as electricity, water, blood, and medical supplies need to be protected from outages and shortfalls. The national and county governments also need to work closely with health facilities to understand what loopholes need to be tightened through intentional financing and sealing off financial leakages to ensure preservation of lives, safer and more inclusive systems, and essential supplies that require backup in case of outages and failures.

Onyimbi Nelson, health economics and a youth advocate, NAYA Kenya.