Political Promises, Public Realities: The Cost of Short-Term Thinking in Healthcare

 Every election season in Kenya arrives with familiar fanfare: billboards of progress, pledges of new hospitals, promises of “universal healthcare for all.” Yet, as the applause fades and administrations change, those ambitious headlines often turn into abandoned buildings, unpaid staff, and forgotten blueprints.

The story of healthcare and politics in Kenya and much of Africa is a story of short-term promises overshadowing long-term priorities. While manifestos celebrate new hospitals, few discuss how to sustain them.

Behind every underfunded dispensary or stalled project lies the cost of short-term thinking, and the people who pay it are the citizens, not the politicians.

When Healthcare Becomes a Campaign, Not a Commitment

In Kenya, healthcare has become one of the most politicised sectors. During elections, leaders unveil flashy projects from county hospitals to “free” care programs that rarely survive the transition to the next administration.

These initiatives are often designed to win votes, not to build systems. Funding dries up once the spotlight fades. Equipment procured for publicity sits idle. Policies are rewritten before they’ve even taken root.

“Healthcare becomes a revolving door of priorities,” says a senior medical officer in Nakuru. “Every five years, we start from scratch.”

The Hidden Cost of Political Cycles

This short-term policy cycle has deeper consequences than unfinished hospitals. It weakens public trust, interrupts care continuity, and drains public finances.

When a vaccination program loses funding mid-cycle, children miss doses. When a county’s maternal care initiative is replaced by a new scheme, data continuity breaks. Lives are disrupted because planning never outlives politics.

In rural Kenya, this inconsistency is felt most sharply. Health workers struggle to adapt to constantly changing priorities, one year promoting preventive care, the next focusing on infrastructure, and then suddenly shifting to digital records. Without continuity, no progress lasts long enough to matter.

Politics Without Policy, Policy Without Practice

Kenya’s devolution of health functions to counties was meant to bring decisions closer to the people. Yet, it also made healthcare even more vulnerable to political turnover. County executives treat hospitals as campaign trophies, not as long-term assets.

The result? Overlaps, inefficiencies, and duplication. Two programs target the same issue, while other critical gaps remain ignored. Equipment is procured without corresponding personnel. Budgets are approved without maintenance plans.

This reactive governance structure explains why Kenya’s healthcare indicators often improve in spurts, a burst of progress followed by stagnation when funding priorities change.

Jayesh Saini’s Model: Building Beyond Election Cycles

While political projects fade with elections, Jayesh Saini’s public health philosophy endures through design. His healthcare networks, including Lifecare Hospitals, Bliss Healthcare, and Lifecare Foundation, are built on continuity, not campaigns.

Saini’s approach begins where political cycles end: with sustainability and system resilience. Each facility or program under his network is designed to function independently of political funding or media hype.

By investing in self-sustaining operational models, cross-trained staff, and local partnerships, his institutions ensure that patient care doesn’t pause when governments change.

“Healthcare can’t reset every five years,” Saini says. “It must evolve continuously  because diseases don’t follow election calendars.”

Private Leadership, Public Lessons

Saini’s leadership offers lessons for policymakers. His hospitals thrive not because of endless funding, but because of predictable systems. Instead of replacing projects with every new initiative, his teams improve and expand existing ones.

For example, Bliss Healthcare’s outpatient network has maintained service consistency for over a decade by reinvesting revenue into operational continuity, a stark contrast to public facilities that halt operations when grants lapse.

This long-term discipline proves that progress in healthcare is not about political charisma but institutional memory, the ability to retain, refine, and replicate what works.

The Need for Policy Continuity

Kenya’s healthcare progress will depend on whether its leaders can resist the temptation of short-term optics and embrace cross-administration continuity.

That means:

●       Establishing non-partisan health policies that survive electoral cycles.

●       Funding multi-year health programs that can’t be arbitrarily cancelled.

●       Creating independent health authorities to oversee national priorities regardless of leadership shifts.

Countries that succeed in healthcare reform, from Thailand to Rwanda, have one trait: they plan beyond politics. They build frameworks that no election can dismantle.

The People Who Pay the Price

For the average Kenyan, the cost of policy discontinuity isn’t measured in billions; it’s measured in lives delayed or denied care.

Mothers turned away from maternity wards because funding stopped mid-quarter. Chronic patients who lose access to medicines because county supply chains change. Doctors are demotivated by broken promises of better infrastructure.

Every five-year political reset becomes a human reset, pushing the healthcare system two steps forward, then one step back.

Leadership That Lasts Longer Than Elections

What Kenya needs now are health leaders who think beyond terms, not just within them. The private sector and models like Jayesh Saini’s have shown what that looks like: scalable, affordable, and durable systems built on vision, not volatility.

By focusing on institutional strength over individual spotlight, Saini demonstrates that healthcare progress doesn’t need political headlines to endure. It just needs discipline nd leaders willing to play the long game.

Conclusion: Health Shouldn’t Be a Campaign Promise

Kenya’s healthcare system doesn’t need another manifesto. It needs momentum.

The next era of progress will belong to those who stop treating hospitals as photo opportunities and start treating them as promises of permanence. Because healthcare isn’t a campaign issue, it’s a civic contract.

As Jayesh Saini’s public health leadership shows, real progress happens when vision outlasts election cycles. And until politics learns to serve patients rather than polls, the nation’s healthcare story will continue to restart when it should already be running.