The price of surival: How cancer is driving Kenyan families into debt

Acute myeloid leukaemia research, conceptual illustration. [Courtesy]

In a modest apartment block in Gurugram, on the outskirts of New Delhi, the door to Room 204 rarely stays shut.

Inside, a Kenyan family has spent the last six months suspended between hope and uncertainty. The husband is battling tongue cancer.

Every few days, the family makes another journey to the hospital, hoping doctors will say the tumour has responded to treatment.

Instead, they carry home another worry, an unpaid hospital bill.

More than Sh400,000 is yet to be settled through Kenya’s Social Health Authority (SHA), forcing the family into an agonising wait in a foreign country as debts mount.

“They keep telling us they are waiting for payment,” says Winnie Njoroge, a fellow Kenyan living in the same apartment while her daughter receives specialised medical treatment in India.

Over the months, Winnie has watched neighbours arrive hopeful and leave broken, some carrying good news, others grief.

“Three months ago, we lost an 18-year-old Kenyan girl who had been receiving treatment here,” she recalls quietly.

“Her family went back home mourning her death and carrying almost Sh2 million in unpaid intensive care bills.”

Although Winnie is in India because of her daughter’s rare genetic condition, stories like those of the cancer patient next door have become painfully familiar.

“We all come here because we want to save someone we love,” she says. “But many families end up fighting two battles: the illness itself and the bills.”

This struggle is increasingly defining the cancer experience for thousands of Kenyan families even as the World Health Organisation projects that, without urgent global investment in prevention and care, new cancer cases will nearly double from 20.6 million today to almost 35 million annually by 2050.

Despite Kenya’s transition from the National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF) to SHA under the promise of universal health coverage (UHC), patients say diagnosis, treatment, and follow-up care remain financially out of reach.

For some, cancer is diagnosed too late. For others, treatment begins but can’t continue. Some sell land.

Others empty their savings.

Many turn to church fundraisers, online appeals, and WhatsApp groups, hoping strangers will help buy another round of chemotherapy or radiotherapy.

Health advocates warn that the financial burden is almost as devastating as the disease itself.

 A Diagnosis That Changes Everything

Kenya records around 47,000 new cancer cases each year, with more than 32,000 deaths annually, nearly 80 deaths every day, according to the National Cancer Institute of Kenya (NCI-K).

Health experts say one of the country’s biggest challenges is that over 70% of patients are diagnosed after the disease has advanced, when treatment is more complex, costlier, and survival chances plummet.

Phoebe Ongadi, Executive Director of the Kenya Network of Cancer Organisations (KENCO), explains the fallout: “Cancer doesn’t only attack the body. It attacks household income, children’s education, livelihoods, and mental wellbeing. Many families become poor within months of diagnosis.”

Although SHA introduced a coverage package of up to Sh400,000 for cancer treatment, alongside support through the Emergency, Chronic and Critical Illness Fund, Ongadi says the reality is far more complex.

“People hear there is cancer coverage and assume everything is taken care of. It isn’t.”

Diagnosis alone specialized scans, biopsies, pathology tests, and consultations can consume hundreds of thousands of shillings before treatment even begins.

“By the time many patients receive confirmation they have cancer, they have already exhausted their savings,” she explains.

Even then, treatment is not guaranteed.

Private hospitals increasingly ask patients to make cash payments upfront while awaiting reimbursement from SHA, creating a painful dilemma for already stretched families.

“The hospitals say they have submitted claims but have not been paid,” Ongadi says.

“So they go back to patients and ask them to top up.”

For households borrowing to survive, these additional costs often become the breaking point.

“We are seeing treatment abandonment because families simply cannot keep up.”

 The global warning

The experiences of Kenyan patients mirror grave global warnings from WHO’s 2026 Global Status Report on Cancer.

Unless countries urgently invest in prevention, early diagnosis, and equitable treatment, new cancer cases worldwide will rise from 20.6 million to nearly 35 million annually by 2050.

Cancer already claims close to 10 million lives yearly, more than 26,000 each day, making it the world’s second leading cause of death after cardiovascular disease.

WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stresses that cancer survival “should never depend on where someone was born or what they earn.”

The report reveals stark inequalities: While 87% of women diagnosed with breast cancer survive at least five years in high-income countries, survival falls to 42% in low-income countries, often due to late diagnosis or lack of treatment.

Fewer than one in three countries have fully integrated cancer services into universal health coverage, forcing millions to shoulder devastating out-of-pocket costs.

For Kenya, where universal health coverage remains a pivotal government goal, this raises difficult questions about whether financial protection is reaching patients when they need it most.

The cost beyond diagnosis

For many Kenyan families, the hardest part of the cancer diagnosis is not the word itself but discovering how much survival will cost.

By the time patients begin chemotherapy, radiotherapy, or surgery, they have often spent months moving between health facilities seeking answers, paying for scans, tests, consultations, and transport, often without a definitive diagnosis.

Savings vanish. Some sell land. Others cash out businesses.

Many organise fundraisers or circulate mobile money numbers on social media, hoping strangers will pay for one more treatment cycle.

Patient advocates say that although SHA expanded financial protection for some illnesses, cancer exposes significant gaps in Kenya’s healthcare financing.

“Cancer is different from many diseases; treatment is a journey involving diagnosis, surgery, chemo, radiotherapy, follow-up imaging, and long-term medication. Every stage has a cost,” Ongadi says.

A common misconception is that insurance eliminates financial burden.

“Many find some services require cash payments, others depend on delayed hospital reimbursements,” she explains.

“SHA provides Sh400,000 cancer cover, plus potential Emergency Fund allocations. But for many cancers, especially advanced disease, this is exhausted quickly.”

Delays in hospital reimbursements complicate matters.

“We frequently hear hospitals submit claims but have not been paid. Eventually, patients must top up,” Ongadi says.

For families already struggling to afford food, these unexpected costs often interrupt treatment.

Some postpone chemotherapy. Others delay surgery. Some stop treatment altogether.

“Cancer doesn’t wait,” Ongadi says. “Tumours continue growing whether a patient has money or not.”

Those delays carry devastating consequences.

Late diagnosis reduces survival chances and increases treatment complexity and cost.

The Parliament health committee

Kenyan lawmakers acknowledge the need for greater investment.

In a recent National Assembly Health Committee meeting with NCI officials, members pledged to raise funding, recognising that cancer can no longer be treated as a secondary health priority.

Chairperson Dr James Nyikal noted government funding increased from Sh40 million to Sh349 million recently but said more is necessary.

“They have developed proper staff and strategy. We need to see how to increase funding because cancer is now a big problem,” he said.

But funding alone isn’t enough.

NCI Chief Executive Dr Elias Melly painted a sobering picture before Parliament: “Kenya loses 80 cancer patients each day; 120 are diagnosed daily."

He described shortages of oncologists, pathologists, and diagnostic equipment that delay treatment until the disease becomes advanced.

Dr Melly urged a review of SHA benefits, emphasising that specialised treatments like bone marrow transplants remain inaccessible due to limited coverage.

Melly’s concerns mirror WHO’s findings.

Despite rapid advances in cancer care, millions cannot access basic medicines.

The report notes availability of 20 priority cancer medicines ranges from 9% to 54% in low- and lower-middle-income countries, versus 68% to 94% in high-income countries.

Inequities extend to early detection, specialist centres, radiotherapy machines, and trained healthcare workers.

WHO underscores that these disparities contribute to drastically different survival rates across countries, even for cancers curable if detected early.

The global cancer burden is shifting.

While tobacco remains the leading risk factor, rising obesity, inactivity, poor diets, and air pollution fuel new cases worldwide.

Lung cancer kills the most people globally.

Among men, lung, prostate, and colorectal cancers dominate; among women, breast cancer leads, followed by lung and colorectal cancers.

Nearly 40% of cancer cases relate to preventable risks, such as tobacco, harmful alcohol, obesity, and infections such as HPV and hepatitis B and C.

Experts emphasise that prevention is far less costly than treatment.

For thousands of Kenyan families already living with cancer, prevention is no longer the question; it is whether they can afford to keep fighting.

Thousands of kilometres from home, the Kenyan family in India counts the days.

Each hospital visit brings hope and another bill.

Relatives back home make calls, organise fundraisers, and pray treatment succeeds before funds run out.

Their story is unusual only for unfolding abroad. The financial struggle is painfully familiar.

Across Kenya, families fight two battles: cancer and poverty .... And near poverty.

For many patients, survival depends on affording treatment.

Doctors say financial pressures influence decisions daily.

Patients postpone surgeries to raise funds.

Others skip chemotherapy because they can’t afford transport, lodging, or uncovered medicines.

Some abandon treatment after exhausting resources

Dr Timothy Olweny, NCI Board Chair and palliative care specialist, says cancer care must go beyond medicine.

“Cancer affects every part of life: the patient, family, income, emotional wellbeing, dignity. When treatment isn’t affordable, suffering far exceeds disease,” he says.

He urges early palliative care to relieve pain and support families throughout illness.

WHO states: Millions endure avoidable pain, psychological distress, and financial hardship due to inaccessible supportive and palliative care.

The organisation warns that cancer pushes households into catastrophic health expenses, forcing the sale of assets, school withdrawals, or forgoing essentials.

Late diagnosis, lost productivity, and premature death harm communities and economies.

Experts say reversing this requires more than cancer centres; it demands investing in prevention, screening, diagnostics, workforce training, medicine access, and reducing financial barriers blocking treatment completion.

Cancer is Kenya’s fastest-growing public health challenge, claiming lives across counties and social classes.

Behind every statistic is a person waiting for biopsy results.

Someone is postponing treatment because funds ran dry. Someone hoping another fundraiser will buy time.

The true price of cancer is measured not only in hospital bills but in interrupted childhoods, lost dreams, depleted savings, and empty seats around family tables.

Source: WHO Global Status Report on Cancer 2026, National Cancer Institute of Kenya, Kenya Network of Cancer Organisations.