• An additional warehouse is expected to be completed by June at Kemsa headquarters in Embakasi, Nairobi, to boost storage.
• A system is already in place to ensure all commodities are tracked.
The Kenya Medical Supplies Authority is in the process of setting up regional distribution centres in Kisumu and Mombasa.
The facilities should be up and running by the end of March. They are expected to ease the supply of health commodities to hospitals. An additional warehouse is expected to be completed by June at the Kemsa headquarters in Embakasi, Nairobi, to boost storage.
The developments follow Kemsa's partnership with Postal Corporation of Kenya to help in the delivery of medical supplies to hospitals located in remote parts of the country. The Sh120 million contract signed on Tuesday will enable deliveries through motorbikes, and small and medium-sized trucks.
Other high-value and high-impact supplies such as snake antivenom will be delivered through courier service.
“To achieve and meet UHC needs, Kemsa is required to increase its capacity to supply essential health products and technologies countrywide. We realise that we need to work with an institution that has enough capacity and the same vision as Kemsa in terms of delivering to the last mile,” Kemsa CEO Jonah Manjari said.
The agency in the UHC programme has been tasked with ensuring quality medical products at fair prices, adequacy in stocks of essential medicines and supplies and delivery in good time as requested by health facilities. A system is already in place to ensure all commodities are tracked.
“With Posta, we will be expecting that the commodities will be delivered on time because that is also part of the key performance indicators of the advanced distribution management system.”
According to Manjari, Posta has a good and efficient logistics mechanism to go to reach every region. The focus of this partnership will be on service delivery and not profiteering.
“It is not a question of 99 per cent arrival; it has to be 100 per cent arrival. The post office has been in logistics for more than 100 years. It is complementary to what Kemsa is doing so we ensure every Kenyan gets their medicine on time,” Postmaster General and CEO Dan Kagwe said.
“It is our business. Moving stuff from A to B is what we have been doing for years, whether it is letters, parcels, packages, ballot papers, books, medicine that is what we have been doing so that experience of delivery and logistics is what we are bringing on to the table with Kemsa.”
Kagwe reaffirmed that Posta has more than enough vehicular and human resource capacity to handle deliveries.
“If it is movement, we are in every corner of this country. On top of that, our mandate is to ensure there is communication in this country.”