Medical Equipment Service was a good idea whose implementation missed the target because if I were implementing MES there are few things I would have done differently.
Let me start by saying why it is a good idea, most patients get referred to bigger facilities in Nairobi, Mombasa, Nyeri, Kisumu and Eldoret because of lack of some key diagnostic equipment that is not available in those lower health facilities.
Having those machines closer to people would reduce the need for referrals and crowding in the national referral facilities, the Level Six.
I think the implementation of this should have been done differently. They should have done some baseline survey of the capacity of the facilities to be able to utilize those equipments appropriately in terms of disease burden, population and the available trained personnel to be able to utilize those machines.
I don’t think those were done, it was just a quick need assessment so what happened is a situation of the cart being put before the horse.
For example, in Isiolo County two health facilities were selected – Isiolo County Referral Hospital and Garbatulla Sub-County Hospital – but none of those hospitals had the necessary staff trained to be able to manage CT-Scan, Renal Unit, Ultrasound and all those good machines that were supplied.
What was the result? It took us three years to train a nurse who we had to take to train as renal nurse who has come back one year ago to start the renal unit.
It has taken us quite a long time to start utilizing CT-Scan, we have just started using the ultra-sound and other fancy equipments that were delivered to us. That is only Isiolo County Referral Hospital.
The ones at Garbatulla Sub-County hospital have not been unpacked since they were delivered. I was there just three weeks ago when we had our first Corona case in Garbatulla. Very fancy equipments still in their boxes.
The result of that is that the clock for mwanachi is still at zero in Garbatulla while the clock of the suppliers has been ticking for five years. It is a scenario of putting the cart before the house.
All these facilities, where the equipments were heading, should have trained the personnel first, ensure the buildings are there so that when the clock starts ticking for the contractor, the clock also ticks for the people.
The Isiolo Governor and chair Health Committee at CoG spoke to Star
