Karua urges Uhuru to reform country’s hospitals

Narc Kenya leader Martha Karua has challenged the government to exploit the opportunity presented by the Covid-19 pandemic to ensure that each of the 47 county hospitals are refurbished and equipped to diagnose and treat most diseases.

Ms Karua further argued that the pandemic had given the country an opportune moment to ensure that county hospitals have the necessary human resources and a model that will create uniformity of standards and protect both the health workers from arbitrary decisions of individuals in power.

In an open letter to President Uhuru Kenyatta, the former Justice Minister said additional resources should be availed for hiring of health professionals in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

“A majority of the counties are ill-prepared to respond to the pandemic or any other major outbreak of infectious disease,” Ms Karua said in the letter, noting that very few counties had intensive care unit (ICU) facilities or the necessary diagnostic and treatment equipment for major ailments.

“This translates to multiple referrals daily to the two national hospitals, which overburden these facilities and create backlogs that end up hurting the needy patients.”

President Kenyatta has laid out universal healthcare as one of his Big Four agenda that must be achieved before 2022. The programme has been under a pilot project in four counties of Kisumu, Machakos, Isiolo and Nyeri.

However, Ms Karua noted that universal healthcare was not possible without dedicated health professionals and challenged the government to improve the terms of service of health professionals.

“It is also time to consider whether all government health professionals should be required to be in full time service of the government instead of the current situation where a majority have divided attention by serving the government and at the same time operating private practice on the side,” she said, noting that the situation breeds conflict of interest thus undermining service delivery in public health facilities.

Among other things, the Narc Kenya leader proposes that time has come to overhaul and reinvent the National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) and the Kenya Medical Supplies Agency (KEMSA) and make them responsive to the health needs of Kenyans and to the universal healthcare.

“Rolling out universal healthcare has heavy financial implications, but failing to improve our health system and to ensure access to quality health services to all will in the long run be more costly,” she says in the letter.

“We are at this moment spending colossal sums to hurriedly boost our capacity to fight the corona pandemic. Many Kenyans of all walks of life have been spending colossal sums to fly out loved ones to other countries like India, South Africa and other foreign nations for specialised treatment, which many a time render families destitute.”

She also wants public hospitals integrated through ICT to enable real time consultation of medical personnel within the county, across the counties, and between the counties and the national referral hospitals to ease the burden of travel by patients on referrals.