Paper short abstract:

Technology outsourcing of cancer treatment has impacted cancer patients in many ways. Whilst the approach could be expected to lead to prompt access of health care, cancer patients have interpreted this as an out-of-reach enterprise, thus affecting their health seeking behaviour.

Paper long abstract:

Globally, non-communicable diseases cause 38 million deaths annually. Specifically, cancer epidemic causes 8.2 million deaths across the world. Cancer deaths lead to 7% of total mortality in Kenya. The cancer epidemic has exposed the structural, policy and access frameworks that limit the patients' access of cancer medical care in Kisumu County of Western Kenya. Consequently, there has been 'outsourcing' of both personnel and technology in the county through organized medical camps for screening and treatment of cancer. Outsourcing of technology presents cancer treatment as something out-of-reach by local patients, thereby impacting on their overall health seeking. This paper examines how outsourcing of cancer technology and treatment influences the patients' health seeking at Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Referral Hospital in Kisumu, Kenya. It explores the patients' portrayal of cancer disease in day-to-day conversation; secondly, it investigates how perceived technology and expertise movements shapes the notion that cancer treatment is 'out-of-reach' ; and thirdly, it examines the degree to which outsourcing meets the patients' individual healthcare needs. The Theory of Reasoned Action (Ajzen and Fishbein 1980) guides the paper. Drawing on a case study of Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Referral Hospital in Kisumu the paper examines cancer patients' experience of treatment. It concludes that outsourcing of cancer technology could be constrained by the patients' underlying misconceptions and attitudes towards the model. Therefore, technology outsourcing approaches should address the patients' expectations with regard to seeking cancer healthcare