When Celestine Muthiani gave birth to her son in a public hospital on the outskirts of Nairobi, she knew something wasn’t right. He struggled to feed, cried constantly, and missed nearly every developmental milestone. It took almost two years, several misdiagnoses and countless visits to overwhelmed clinics before she heard the words cerebral palsy (CP) for the first time. By then, she had lost her job, her husband had left, and the care of her child had become a full-time, solitary burden. Celestine’s story, unfortunately, is not exceptional in Kenya.
Cerebral Palsy is the most common motor disability in children worldwide, yet in Kenya, it remains invisible in national statistics, policy frameworks and healthcare financing models. Globally, CP affects 1 to 4 in every 1,000 live births. In Sub-Saharan Africa, the numbers are worse, with some regions reporting up to 10 cases per 1,000. While Kenya has no comprehensive national data, regional trends suggest that thousands of children are born with or acquire CP every year. Most are never diagnosed and of those who are, few will receive the long-term, multidisciplinary care they require.
The reasons for this are manifold, but most notable is the fact that CP is not a disease but a group of disorders caused by brain injury or abnormal development, often before, during, or shortly after birth. In Kenya, contributing factors include birth asphyxia, neonatal infections, low birth weight, and limited access to prenatal and emergency obstetric care. While these are medical problems, they are also systemic and reflective of poorly resourced public health systems, lack of trained personnel in neonatal intensive care and fragmented disability services.
Such gaps make early detection a critical failure despite evidence showing that the earlier a child with CP is identified and supported, the better the outcomes. Kenya’s growing network of community health volunteers could play a vital role in screening and referrals, but they need training, support and system-wide backing. Right now, many children are slipping through the cracks because the people closest to them do not know what to look for or where to turn.
But even when a diagnosis is made, it often marks the beginning of a new set of challenges for families. Rehabilitation services, which include physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy and assistive technologies, are chronically underfunded. In private institutions, these services are prohibitively expensive, while in public ones, they are scarce and often staffed by overwhelmed practitioners. The result is that care falls disproportionately on the shoulders of mothers, many of whom are forced to abandon work, face social stigma, and navigate a labyrinth of institutions that were never designed with them in mind.
It is against this backdrop that partnerships between the private sector and civil society are beginning to shape alternative models of care. Two years ago, Minet Kenya, for instance, partnered with the Cerebral Palsy Society of Kenya (CPSK) in sponsoring affected children through rehabilitation support. They had targeted 30 children but by 2024 the initiative had already reached 60 beneficiaries, showcasing the scale of need and the possibilities of sustained investment.
Yet even as such partnerships continue to make an impact, we must remain critically aware that the future of CP care in Kenya cannot rely solely on charitable models, and must move upstream into policy, insurance and education. Healthcare financing remains a pivotal challenge, majorly because most insurance schemes in Kenya do not adequately cover long-term rehabilitative care, especially for developmental conditions. For children with CP, this means limited or no access to ongoing therapies that could improve mobility, communication, and quality of life. Insurers, policymakers, and the healthcare sector must now begin to rethink the definition of essential services, shifting away from the lens of curative medicine and lean heavily towards functional capacity and dignity.
We are also in dire need of a cultural reckoning, with stigma being one of the most corrosive barriers for children with CP and their families. Public discourse is still saturated with misconceptions about the causes of the condition, often rooted in superstition or misinformation. Changing this requires visibility, leadership and open conversations in schools, clinics, media and the workplace.
If sustained, collaborative efforts that link finance, health and education into a coherent system of support would most certainly create an environment where children with CP are empowered to reach their full developmental potential and to participate meaningfully in society.
By Judith Atieno – Manager Client Experience & Relationship Management at Minet Kenya