Kiambu: Nyoro decries lack of health funds
Delays by the National Treasury to release cash to counties has negatively affected the provision of proper health services, exposing patients to the vagaries of pain and hopelessness.
According to Kiambu Governor James Nyoro, unless the vice is addressed with prompt, the situation will degenerate into lack of drugs a situation that will compromise the fight against Covid-19 and other diseases such as influenza and common cold.
"We are literally bankrupt as a county and are depending on our daily revenue collections which are hardly enough," said he.
The governor said that his county had not received a single cent from the Exchequer for the past 3 months but expressed the hope that Treasury will avail 2 months cash before the start of the next financial year.
Treasury Cabinet Secretary Ukur Yattani is expected to present the budget estimates on Thursday this week.
Nyoro said that if the money is not availed in time, it will make it difficult for his government to procure drugs or employ more medical personnel.
"We expect to get cash from the exchequer this week and this will enable us to procure adequate drugs to cope with cold weather related diseases. In the event the money is not available now, the earliest we shall get the money will be in August which will be disastrous to the running of the government," he told the media in Limuru yesterday.
He at the same time announces that general services at Tigoni level 4 hospital have been restarted and called upon patients to seek health care services from the same.
The hospital was converted into a Covid-19 centre in June last year, but the number of patients admitted at the facility has drastically declined.
“As we speak, we do not have any Covid-19 patient. Two weeks ago, we had three patients only. We have decided to open wing of the hospital to help the neighbouring health centres attend to patients with other diseases,” he said.
The governor the newly constructed wing which has a capacity of 150 beds will be reserved for the Covid 19 cases while the front old wing with 100 beds for adults and children will be used to handle general treatments.
“All the 150 beds in the new facility are connected with oxygen, and we shall reserve them for Covid-19 patients just in case of another breakout,” he said adding that a 3 tonnes oxygen cylinder had already been installed at the facility.
“We reopened the hospital last week and patients are slowly trickling in. We have returned all the nurses and doctors who we had transferred to neighbouring health centres,” he said.
Nyoro at the same time said the hospital has since have completed the installation of 14 ICU beds.
He called upon locals to continue adhering to all the laid down Covid-19 containment protocols and desist from assuming that the pandemic has disappeared.
"Nobody should take the Covid-19 pandemic for granted. It is still around and therefore we all should strictly follow the containment protocols," he said.
