• County chief says there is no reason for Migori to accept the bill by Aukot
• County has set aside more than Sh150 million to construct medical laboratory, oxygen plant, and maternal, child and amenity facilities
Migori Governor Okoth Obado has urged MCAs to reject the Punguza Mizigo Bill.
He said the bill has failed to streamline how devolved cash will be transferred to the county governments. The county chief made the appeal during his annual address to the assembly on Tuesday.
"There is no reason for Migori to accept the bill by [Thirdway Alliance leader Ekuro] Aukot. The Building Bridges Initiative team has concluded its findings and soon the report will be out for all Kenyans to debate and make a decision," Obado said.
The bill is before the house. The MCAs resumed sittings on Tuesday after a monthlong recess. Uasin Gishu assembly has adopted the bill, while Nyeri and Siaya have rejected it. It requires the support of at least 24 counties to move to the next stage.
"The bill by Ekuro Aukot does not factor in the strengthening of devolution or put in place women leadership role in the country," Obado said.
He had earlier launched multimillion-shilling projects at the Migori Referral Hospital. He said they have set aside more than Sh150 million to build a medical laboratory, oxygen plant, and maternal, child and amenity facilities at the hospital.
Of the amount, Sh10 million will recruit more medical specialists who will be attached to the newly built computerised tomography scan (CT-scan) to enhance service delivery to the people.
Migori has also funded the construction and installation of a Sh65 million state-of-the-art medical lab.
"We have also installed an excellent oxygen plant here in our referral hospital at a cost of Sh45 million in the last financial year. Earlier, our Health department used to purchase and transport oxygen from Kisumu at very high costs. We have piped the oxygen into all our wards, making it accessible to all our inpatients just in their hospital beds," Obado said.
In partnership with Amref and the Global Fund, his administration has earmarked more than Sh29 million for the medical lab to install molecular biology equipment and improve its building.
"My government has also invested Sh68 million to construct a maternal, child and amenity complex in the referral hospital fitted with a modern maternal theatre. This is meant to change the face and mode of medical service delivery in the county," he said.
In addition, Migori has developed the second County Health Sector Strategic and Investment Plan 2018-23, and a corresponding Health Sector Monitoring and Evaluation Plan as a roadmap towards the achievement of a healthy and productive population.
Health executive Isca Oluoch said lack of CT-Scan services have led to more mortalities and morbidities, a situation she said is against the tenets of access to affordable quality medical services as indicated in the Universal Health Coverage.
"In a month, CT-Scan cases used to be referred out of the county for diagnostic services. This was a huge loss to the county government not only in terms of resources but also a serious parameter of inefficiency in desired medical service delivery," Oluoch said.
(Edited by F'Orieny)