Factors influencing supply of health inputs in Kenya

Abstract

Kenyan Health sector is highly sensitive as it plays the role of saving lives. The key strategy of curative and preventive measures forms the main goal for the sector. For the last three decades, this goal has not been successfully met. The failure is to quite a large extent attributed to lack of adequate health inputs particularly pharmaceuticals and non- pharmaceuticals especially in the public health facilities. Based on the existing literature and the available data, this paper provides a descriptive and empirical analysis of the factors that influence supply of pharmaceuticals and non-pharmaceuticals in Kenya. The paper's primary purpose is to identify the major determinants of supply of pharmaceuticals and non-pharmaceuticals in Kenya. This implies that the principal focus of this paper is to pursue an analysis of the relative importance of these determinants, followed by a proposal of measures to enhance supply of pharmaceuticals and non-pharmaceuticals aimed at equipping the public health facilities to the optimal level. The major findings of the paper, based on a time-series regression model are that the charges of Healthcare, prices for pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceuticals, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and population size all have statistically insignificant influences on the supply of pharmaceuticals and non-pharmaceuticals in the health sector. To improve efficiency in healthcare services, there is a need to sufficiently equip public health facilities given that majority of people in Kenya seek medical care from these government owned health facilities. Efficiency in equipping these facilities would require to adopt policies which would not necessarily be based on product price, input unit price, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and population size. This is principally attributed to the fact that the government is not a profit making entity in her role of providing public services such as healthcare to the public i.e. her citizens.