The Chairman of the Kitui County Assembly Health Committee and Migwani MCA Philip Musyoka has stated that they will take concrete steps in visiting health centers across Kitui county to ascertain why there are no drugs in hospitals.
This is despite the ministry of health’s big allocation of close to 4 billion in the budget compared to other ministries. Musyoka disclosed that there is a need for a thorough audit to know how the money given to the health ministry is being used since there have been numerous claims from Kitui residents that there are no drugs.
“Ngilu said that KEMSA there are no drugs yet the other counties are getting pharmaceuticals there. She should stop selling such kinds of narratives to us, Maybe she hasn’t paid KEMSA and we already released the money to her,” MCA Philip said.
He also questioned where drugs disbursed by KEMSA which were over 20 lorries went in three months.
“You want to tell us that the medicine was exhausted in three months unless some were bandages or they were empty and she promised us that there would be no more drug insufficiency. Let’s stop this nonsense yet I heard she was the one guarding those lorries to avoid drugs being stolen.”He went on.
“There is no given time that the health ministry was denied money by the county assembly. Other counties are buying drugs thus Kitui county has no excuse because as the chairman of the health in the Assembly we did our part.” MCA Philip added.
On Wednesday media reports indicated that people around Tulia health center in Kitui west are forced to carry water from home to the maternity ward since there is no water for women to use during delivery.
In the neighboring Machakos county, drugs and non-pharmaceuticals had been out of stock for months. 2 weeks ago, MCAs summoned the Health and Finance CECM’s and their chief officers to explain the situation. Health CECM Dr. Ancent Kituku revealed that he had used up his 4.3 billion budget and he needs 1.6 billion to resolve the health crisis in the County.