Bungoma Governor Ken Lusaka has said his administration is in the process of hiring 85 additional nurses to replace those who retired and those who died.
Bungoma is facing an acute shortage of nurses in dispensaries, health centres and in Sub county hospitals. “It is not unusual to find only one nurse manning an entire health facility hence the decision to hire more nurses to deal with the deficit,” the county boss noted.
Lusaka said that strengthening primary healthcare (PHC) was top on his agenda and his first assignment will be hiring of extra nurses to help in delivering efficient services to the locals.
Lusaka who was speaking at Bungoma County Referral Hospital during the annual staff motivation ceremony said that the county has set aside money for the same.
Lusaka announced that casuals who have been working at the health facility for three months will have their terms extended to one year while those on contracts will be employed on permanent and pensionable terms.
“I’m aware of the requests that have been made here by doctors, casual workers and the board of management, I have noted them and I will swiftly act on them,” Lusaka said.
Lusaka noted that in the supplementary budget that was passed by the county assembly, there was an allocation of Sh.10million towards the maintenance of the County referral hospital morgue.
He said that his administration is also looking for ways to increase the monthly stipend for community health volunteers (CHVs) from Sh2, 000 to Sh4, 000 and also have them placed on the NHIF scheme.
Lusaka opened the ICU, eye unit and a cancer centre within the hospital. He said the added facilities will increase service delivery and shorten the distance that residents have been travelling to seek services from other counties.
Lusaka said that there is need to put up a mental health centre unit to test and deal with the high number of people suffering from mental health, attributing it to high cost of living and hard economic times.
“Many people are suffering from mental illness and a mental health centre can handle such cases amongst us,” he said.
Bungoma County Medical Superintendent Dr David Wanikina said that the new eye unit will serve Bungoma and its environs.
By Roseland Lumwamu
