Kiambu gets KES. 216 million to stock essential drugs in its hospitals

Health CS Mutahi Kagwe today said that the National Government, under the Universal Health Care (UHC), had allocated Kiambu County Government KES. 216 million this Financial Year towards ensuring that the county had essential medicines in its health facilities.

The CS was speaking in Tigoni Hospital where he had visited to assess the level of preparedness, determine support needed to enhance readiness to combat this virus.

Kagwe congratulated Kiambu Governor Dr. James Nyoro for hiring an additional 100 health workers from different cadres.

“Kiambu County has already recruited 64 out of 95 through the Public Service Commission Youth Empowerment Programme, which cuts across 21 cadres, and 138 skilled health workers,” said Kagwe.

The CS stressed the need to strengthen Primary Health Care at the community Units, dispensaries & Health centres to bring health care nearer to the people and let the higher-level health facilities to deal with cases that are more complicated and reduce congestion.

He added that at the community level, 1,171 out of 1,200 healthcare workers had been sensitized on UHC, which included COVID-19. All this, he said, was to boost the County’s health work force.

“The Government’s agenda is to make health care more affordable for the common mwananchi. To achieve this, we have embarked on reforming NHIF so that it can serve Kenyans better. I want to appeal to Kenyans to register with the Fund and also diligently contribute monthly,” he said.

On matter COVID-19, the CS noted that Kiambu County, which recorded three cases today, ranked 4^th overall in the country with39 cases of COVID-19 recorded.

Nairobi is the county with the highest number of COVID-cases with 835, followed by Mombasa with 495 and Kajiado with 65.

32 out of 47 counties have so far recorded cases of the disease. Today, 147 people were confirmed positive out of the 2,831 samples tested, bringing the national tally to 1,618.

The three cases from Kiambu were from Kiambu Town (1), Thika (1) and Kikuyu (1).

Nairobi topped the list with 90 cases followed by Mombasa, which recorded 41 cases.

Speaking during the occasion, Gov. Nyoro re-affirmed the county’s preparedness to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic, saying that they had a capacity of about 300 beds.

He added that out of the 509 cases within the county, 37 of them had tested positive.

He appealed to the Ministry of Health to offer more support in testing kits to expand mass testing.

“As of today, we have hired 200 health workers through the support of the National Government and we will hire an additional 100 next week from the national government plus an extra 150 from the county’s resources. We have also plan to hire 5,400 community health volunteers,” explained Nyoro.

Gov. Nyoro said that talks were also underway with Kenyatta University Hospital to have Gatundu Level 5 Hospital becomes a subsidiary of KU Teaching & Referral Hospital.

Present at the function included ICT Cabinet Secretary Joe Mucheru, Deputy Governor Joyce Ngugi, Kiambu County Commissioner Wilson Wanyanga, Acting Director General for Health Dr Patrick Amoth among others.