The Kenya Hospices and Palliative Care Association (KEHPCA) has warned that significant gaps in Kenya’s new Social Health Authority (SHA) scheme are leaving thousands of patients with life-threatening illnesses without essential palliative care and pain relief. They criticized the SHA for excluding crucial home-based and outpatient palliative services.

• Mains concern: SHA’s exclusion of home-based and outpatient palliative care, coupled with frequent shortages of vital painkillers like morphine due to bureaucratic delays at KEMSA.
• Key organization: Kenya Hospices and Palliative Care Association (KEHPCA), represented by Executive Director David Musyoki.
• Notable detail: Embu County was highlighted as a success story, expanding palliative care access from just two patients to 40 daily over the past decade.