The government will this week release over Sh1.5 billion
required to complete stalled hospitals in Uasin Gishu county.
The hospitals include Ziwa and Burnt Forest Level 5 hospitals which were initiated during the regime of former governor Jackson Mandago who is now senator for the area.
Also to be completed are county hospitals at Turbo and Kesses areas.
Health CS Aden Duale toured the county on Friday and Saturday and pledged that the money required will be released to complete the stalled hospitals as directed by President William Ruto.
“I will do my role to ensure the money is released so that we complete the hospitals in good time,” Duale said.
He said completion of the hospitals would help decongest the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital which serves over 23 counties.
“We want to ensure MTRH remains a referral institution so that it does not handle issues that can be dealt with at lower level hospitals,” he said.
Uasin Gishu Governor Jonathan Bii had recently requested President Ruto to have the stalled hospitals completed through national government support.
Bii said his government did not have adequate resources to complete the hospitals hence the need for support from the national government.
Duale said hospitals in the region would receive dialysis, Xray and MRI machines to support delivery of health services.
At the same time the CS said he will refer to the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission cases of thousands of ghost health workers who were hired under the Universal Health Coverage (UHC) programme.
Duale said the ministry is currently carrying out a vetting and verification exercise which should be completed by next week after which the genuine ones would be hired on permanent and pensionable terms.
“I have the money from Parliament to hire the UHC staff but they should not harass me because we are yet to finish the vetting exercise,” he said.
He said from the current records, thousands of the UHC workers are hired irregularly and were earning illegally and that their cases may be handled by the EACC.
“The numbers that we are seeing indicate that there were thousands of ghost workers and we will have to deal with them as per the law,” said the CS.
The CS said thousands of people were hired as nurses yet they are not trained nurses and had just been earning as ghost workers.
“If you are not a nurse by profession and you have been earning public money for all this years then know that you will face the law. You must refund our money,” Duale said.
He warned the UHC workers not to push the government with protest and letters or messages seeking to force things because the vetting must be completed.
“Once we are done with vetting sometime next week we will employ the nurses on permanent and pensionable terms,” he said.
The CS said he had a job to do in ensuring healthcare system works for the benefit of Kenyans and not for the workers or other parties.
“The boss of the healthcare system is the patient and not the workers or the leaders or the hospitals. We have to focus on the dignity of the patients who are the most important people in the health system,” the CS said.
Duale was speaking in Uasin Gishu where he flagged off supply of drugs to hospitals and later presided over the opening of an MTC college at Burnt Forest.
