Another priority for Kenyatta's government was improving access to healthcare services. It stated that its long-term goal was to establish a system of free, universal medical care. In the short-term, its emphasis was on increasing the overall number of doctors and registered nurses while decreasing the number of expatriates in those positions. In 1965, the government introduced free medical services for out-patients and children. By Kenyatta's death, the majority of Kenyans had access to significantly better healthcare than they had had in the colonial period. Before independence, the average life expectancy in Kenya was 45, but by the end of the 1970s it was 55, the second highest in Sub-Saharan Africa. This improved medical care had resulted in declining mortality rates while birth rates remained high, resulting in a rapidly growing population; from 1962 to 1979, Kenya's population grew by just under 4% a year, the highest rate in the world at the time. This put a severe strain on social services; Kenyatta's government promoted family planning projects to stem the birth-rate, but these had little success.