In the daily lives of millions of Kenyans, healthcare is not a right, it is a gamble. From rural villages to informal settlements, citizens are forced to travel long distances to health centers that lack electricity, medicine, or even trained personnel. For the working poor, falling ill means choosing between buying food and seeking treatment. Pregnant women walk for hours, only to deliver in overcrowded clinics or return home without assistance. This is not accidental, it is systemic neglect. NFD sees this reality as a moral failure and a breach of constitutional duty under Article 43, which guarantees every Kenyan the right to the highest attainable standard of health.

We propose a comprehensive overhaul of the country’s primary healthcare system, beginning with the deployment of 20,000 salaried Community Health Workers. These frontline workers will be recruited from within the communities they serve and trained to deliver preventive care, health education, family planning, and referrals. Their work will be digitally supported, tracked, and integrated into the national health data system. They will no longer be volunteers working without recognition, but salaried professionals central to our health infrastructure.

In tandem, NFD will upgrade over 400 rural health facilities with water, solar power, diagnostic equipment, and fully stocked pharmacies. In pastoralist and ASAL areas, we will deploy mobile solar-powered clinics to ensure no community is beyond the reach of care. Each county will be legally compelled to allocate at least five percent of its health budget to prevention through deworming programs, cancer screening, health literacy campaigns, and immunizations.

Digitization will link Level 2 and Level 3 facilities through real-time patient records and referral platforms, ensuring continuity of care. In counties where maternal mortality is high, maternal waiting homes will be constructed adjacent to facilities, providing a safe space for high-risk pregnancies.

This is not utopia. It is urgent. Kenya’s maternal mortality rate stands at 342 deaths per 100,000 live births ten times higher than in high-income countries. Only 40% of public facilities have functional diagnostics, and in 2022, over 60% of CHWs were still unpaid. These are not figures to quote in reports. They are calls to action. Under NFD, healthcare will not be a gamble. It will be a guaranteed and dignified right.