Gender, disability and pro-poor financing in Kenya
Research work at within Resyst in Kenya focused on the perceptions and experiences of the people living in poverty with health financing policies that target them. These include free maternity services, user fee removal in public primary health care facilities, and the Health Insurance Subsidy Program (HISP) for the poor. Preliminary findings showed that one of the factors that limited access to skilled maternity services was perceptions of low quality of care evidenced by reports of health care worker harassment and insensitivity to the needs of pregnant women. It was also evident that people with disabilities living in poverty faced unique challenges due to limited mobility when accessing care compared to people living in poverty who were abled-bodied. With support from RinGs an intersectional approach has been incorporated into the study to get an in-depth understanding of how being a woman and living with disability intersects with poverty to influence experiences with pro-poor health financing policies in Kenya.