Junda dispensary overwhelmed, new facility needed

@Yobramnos4         

Residents of Junda ward in Kisauni subcounty, Mombasa, have called for a second health facility to complement Junda dispensary, which they say is overwhelmed.

The level 2 facility, which should serve about 10,000 people, treats more than five times that number.

“More than 54,000 people are being served by this one facility,” said George Mkila, the Junda dispensary community chairman, on Saturday.

Apart from Junda ward, the facility also serves people from neighbouring Mjambere, Magogoni, Mtopanga and Bamburi wards.

Junda alone has a population of about 50,000 people.

Speaking during a forum to give the facility’s scorecard in Junda, Mkila said the facility was strained because of the large population it was forced to serve with inadequate funding.

The forum, organised by youth organisation Kwacha Africa, was attended by residents, the hospital staff and the Kisauni subcounty medical officer Kassim Yusuf.

Kwacha Africa youth leader David Martin said apart from the oversize population the facility was forced to serve, it lacked some basic tools needed to run smoothly.

“Almost every person who uses the facility you ask tells you there are no drugs there,” said Martin.

He said they found out after investigation that there was friction between the county government and the Kenya Medical Supplies Authority, which supplies drugs and other medical equipment to public health facilities, because of some debt.

“At one point, Kemsa refused to supply any drug or medical equipment to the facility unless the debt they were owed was paid. This caused the lack of drugs,” said Martin.

As a result, most men shunned the dispensary saying it was a waste of time going there.

Pamba Juma, a Junda resident, said this resulted in most people thinking the facility was meant for pregnant women and other female patients.

“It was in people’s minds that this facility is meant for women. But after one of the meetings we had with Kwacha Africa, the community and the hospital staff, it was laid bare that this is a facility for all,” Juma said.

She said the services at the facility had for a long time been slow but several engagements between the stakeholders helped improved matters.

“Sometimes, we women do not have patience. We may be requiring weighing scale services for our babies but since there is only one and we are many, we lose patience and storm out,” Juma said.

Mkila said the facility needed either an upgrade or another one to complement it.

Martin said the facility had a three-wheeler ambulance but it was taken away.

“The three-wheeler ambulance that was there was taken to a different health facility in Utange. We did not understand the reasoning,” he said.

This means emergency cases become moments of life and death with patients left to find their own means of transport to the next available facility that can handle the emergency.

Considering most Junda residents are poor and live from hand to mouth, this has been a nightmare.

Some of the problems have however been ironed out after several meetings between the community, the health administrators in the county and Kwacha Africa.

Scarcity of water in the facility, for example, had been a challenge but the management is striving to address this. At least one borehole has been drilled.

“In our grading, we are happy to reveal that cleanliness scored highly. The staff there have ensured that the facility is always clean,” Martin said.

However, there are inadequate beds and medical rooms.

A level 2 hospital should have at least 10 beds but the dispensary has only four.

“It is overwhelmed. There is a need for the county to identify another area in Junda ward to put up another health facility,” Martin said.

The laboratory at the facility does not meet the required standards. It lacks some basic equipment.

There are supposed to be six nurses but the facility has only four.

“This means the nurses play more roles than they are required thus compromising on the quality of the services they give,” Martin said.

The lab thus serves a less people per day than it should.

Martin said the county should strive to improve some things in the dispensary so as to give hope of better services to the residents.

“We know not all things will be addressed immediately, but at least they can do some 40-50 per cent improvement in the near future,” he said.

David Chaka, another resident, said although the facility was doing its best given its limited resources, there were things that could be improved.

“The only problem I have with the dispensary is that it is not friendly to persons with disability,” he said.

He said there was a need to have sign language interpreters at the facility and ramps to help those with hearing impairments and the physically challenged to communicate and move freely.

Mkila said additional staff members were needed so as to be able to cope with the large population it serves.

He said community health volunteers had kept the facility going.

“They have done a great job there and I would recommend that some of them be absorbed permanently as staff,” Mkila said.

Kisauni subcounty medical officer Kassim Yusuf said they had come up with a work plan to ensure the concerns raised were worked on.

“There is a plan signed between the service provider and the service receivers,” Yusuf said.

He challenged the residents to push their MCA to lobby for more funds to be allocated for improvement of the facility.

Edited by Henry Makori