Murang’a Senator Joe Nyutu has called upon the local devolved administration to improve service delivery in the health sector and spare patients from suffering as they seek medical care.
Nyutu, while reacting to recent increased complaints from the locals concerning poor service delivery in major public hospitals, said it’s high time for the county government to ensure that there is a steady supply of drugs and health workers who are sabotaging operations in the facilities face disciplinary actions.
For the past few days, patients seeking treatment, especially from Murang’a Level- 5 hospital have moved to various social media platforms to air the challenges they faced at the public hospitals.
The patients complained over the lack of drugs and shortage of medical officers decrying the many hours they spent in the hospital before they get served.
They also decried a malfunctioning imaging unit and the absence of medics on the night and weekend shifts.
Nyutu on Thursday said Governor Irungu Kang’ata’s administration should streamline operations in all local public health facilities and ensure effective supervision of health workers to ensure those absenting themselves from work are acted upon.
“Following the recent numerous complaints from members of the public, I reached out to Governor Kang’ata who promised to ensure the challenges are dealt with and service delivery will be improved.
“We hope this will happen without much delay since locals are suffering. For instance, directing patients to acquire drugs from private chemists is painful, especially for those who have no money,” noted the senator.
Nyutu further asked for the provision of alternative methods of registering and keeping patients’ records apart from the recently installed digital system saying when the network fails, patients were kept on waiting benches for many hours.
“We appreciate the move to automate some operations in the public hospitals but once the network fails, patients spend many hours waiting for rectification. A manual system should serve as an alternative to ensure the services are not interrupted should the digital platform fail,” he added.
The new system installed last year has made it possible for patients to walk into hospitals without documents as their biometrics are already captured in the digital system.
“The digitization of operations is a major step but it needs to be well maintained for efficiency. The CT scan machines should also be serviced regularly so that patients are not sent elsewhere to access the service,” he stated.
In a rejoinder, the County Health CEC Dr. Fredrick Mbugua pointed out that various measures have been employed to ensure patients access services without wasting most of their time at waiting benches.
“A lot has been done to streamline operations in the major hospitals including the Level-5 facility for the interest of the patients. The Governor is committed to the improvement of services in the health sector.” Mbugua told KNA via phone.
By Bernard Munyao
