Embu, Kenya: Commission on Revenue Allocation (CRA) has appealed to medical personnel to soften their stand on being devolved to counties.
CRA Chairman Micah Cheserem
CRA chairman Micah Cheserem said the aim of devolving medical services was to ensure proper staffing and health care services to the public.
He said there was a misunderstanding on how doctors and nurses’ responsibilities would be devolved and thus the need to have the medics understand that the benefits outweigh the limitations.
“Devolving the responsibility of the nurses and doctors to the counties will lead to employment of more medical staff and address the shortage that has continued to characterise medical facilities in the country,” Cheresem said.
He was speaking during a tour of the Embu Provincial General Hospital where he urged the county government to move with speed and address issues facing the facility.
“It is unfortunate that the hospital’s inpatient has a patient-nurses ratio of 1 to 35. Devolving the doctors and nurses responsibilities will foresee the employment of others,” Cheserem said.
He noted that the institution’s dentistry section had five dentists who could serve patients but there were only three chairs available.
Thus at any time of the operations, two dentists are usually left idle.
Cheserem decried the poor state of infrastructure at the level five hospital, terming some buildings that have been in construction for the last 25 years as monuments of shame and corruption.
Deplorable state
Hospital administrator Dr Henry Mutune said the current situation at the facility was alarming.
Mutune said the hospital attends to more than 700 patients on weekdays and over 300 others during weekends.
“The hospital serves counties under the Eastern region but has only two operating spaces, with six surgeons who have to wait for each other to get space to operate on the increasing number of patients requiring surgery,” he disclosed.
He said with the free maternity services, the number of patients had soared.
By Joseph Muchiri, The Standard
