Hospitals to be upgraded

The Medical Services ministry will spend Sh550 million this year to equip and refurbish public hospitals. Twenty five hospitals would benefit, assistant minister Danson Mungatana said on Tuesday.

He admitted that the ministry had been performing poorly in the provision of medical care, a situation he said was caused by low funding and massive staff shortages.

He was reacting to reports in the Daily Nation on Monday, which highlighted poor service at public hospitals and the long time patients wait to get treated.

He said wait times were longer than expected and patients often shared beds as doctors could not turn away those who needed to be admitted.

Service delivery was also being hampered by a lack of specialists such as cardiologists.

About 150 Government doctors and approximately 1,000 nurses resign each year to go into private practice or leave the country for better pay elsewhere.

The ministry is also facing a shortage of medical engineers to repair and maintain equipment.

“They have not been as effective as they should be since we do not produce as many as we should in colleges and universities so right now they are working on a rotational basis to cover the more remote areas,” Mr Mungatana said.

Medical equipment requires more maintenance and repair work after five years with complete replacement often necessary.

Scholarships

Retaining professionals was becoming as difficult as hiring them, said the assistant minister.

He said negotiations were under way to come up with post-graduate scholarships for doctors as an incentive to keep them in public sector.

“We want to encourage more of our younger doctors to work for Government by offering these opportunities for further training but it takes time and has budget implications,” said the Garsen MP.