Senate health committee to summon Mandago Shocked senators summon governor over state of hospitals

The Senate Health Committee has said it will summon Governor Jackson Mandago for questioning over the troubled health sector in Uasin Gishu County.

Committee chairman Michael Mbito (Trans Nzoia) spoke yesterday after a two-day fact-finding tour of hospitals in Uasin Gishu and Nandi counties.

On Monday evening, Dr Mbito and two other committee members, senators John Kinyua (Laikipia) and Falhada Iman (nominated), were confronted by angry locals who accused the Senate of failing in its oversight role.

This after the committee had come across leased theatre and mammography machines, among other kit, lying idle in three sub-county hospitals they toured in Ziwa, Moiben and Kesses.

“We will take the governor to task and ask what his role is. We have reports that there is no chief officer for health and the system is breaking down,” Mbito said before the team left for Nairobi.

The committee also encountered several stalled infrastructure projects that were established by the county and national governments.

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In Ziwa, a proposed Sh800 million Level 5 hospital has stalled at the foundation level since 2012 while another project, which is said to have gobbled over Sh89 million, has been abandoned.

“Our work as Senate is to subject counties to oversight. We will investigate this matter thoroughly because we want to know what is happening to the health sector. We want to know why some projects are at foundation level on sites that look like cemeteries,” said Mbito.

He continued: “We have visited different counties, including Kitui, and have established that health facilities are in a better condition. But the case is different in Uasin Gishu. We will sit as a committee, analyse documents we have gathered and do a report.”

The chairman said the breakdown of health systems in the counties was making it difficult for the Senate to push for additional funding from the national government because the devolved units were viewed as being unable to utilise their allocations prudently.

Uasin Gishu Senator Margaret Kamar said she had invited the Mbito-led committee to assess the deteriorating health facilities in the county, which required urgent action.

Senator Kamar said she would continue to push for better management of the healthcare system as well as the establishment of a Level 5 hospital to reduce congestion at the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital.

Roads and Infrastructure Executive Gideon Birir said the contract to upgrade Ziwa Sirikwa Hospital was terminated in 2017 under what he termed as a mutual agreement. But he could not state how much money had been spent before the cancellation.

In Nandi, Senator Samson Cherargei said hospitals in Nandi Hills were suffering.

“Health facilities continue to choke due to inefficient services, anaemic human resources and moribund leadership,” he stated.

Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union North Rift Secretary General Ishmael Ayabei asked the committee to look into human resource challenges in hospitals, saying facilities lacked adequate staff.