•However, many counties, including Nairobi, have begun to service their accounts.
•Kemsa has continued to enhance the automation of its systems to ease the process of order placement, confirmation and distribution of medical supplies.
Image: MAGDALINE SAYA
The Kenya Medical Supplies Authority (Kemsa) has decried the lack of dedicated budget lines as a challenge in the supply of medicines to counties.
Kemsa CEO Terry Ramadhani on Tuesday regretted that such delays had negatively impacted service provision by Kemsa, affecting operational efficiency.
Currently, Kemsa is owed an average of Sh2.1 billion in overdue accounts by several counties.
“At Kemsa, we have adopted a collaborative approach to unlocking the settlement of these outstanding debts."
"We believe counties can better manage their financial obligations by ringfencing health revenues generated by their health facilities to guarantee payments for service providers such as Kemsa,” Ramadhani proposed.
She made the remarks while making the Authority's submission to the Nairobi City County Health Reforms Taskforce.
The task force members who visited Kemsa offices led by Dr Anastasia Nyalita were updated that ringfencing revenues generated by health facilities will minimise the use of such funds for development and other recurrent expenditures at the expense of supplier payments.
However, many counties, including Nairobi, have begun to service their accounts.
“County governments can only be described as Kemsa’s priority or prestige clients, and we are sparing no effort to ensure that we meet their last mile medical supplies needs as best as we can," Ramadhani said.
Going further, as part of the Kemsa reform journey- through a detailed operating and reform plan dubbed the Kemsa 2.0 strategy- she said Kemsa is working closely with county governments to integrate technology solutions that can accelerate efficient service delivery.
The CEO noted that Kemsa has continued to enhance the automation of its systems to ease the process of order placement, confirmation and distribution of medical supplies.
"Systems integration between KEMSA and county governments will facilitate end-to-end visibility of inventories across the health commodities value chain," Ramadhani said.
The systems include the Logistics Management Information System (LMIS), the Ministry of Health Kenya Health Information System (KHIS), and the Kemsa Electronic Proof of Deliveries (e-POD App).
"These technology systems will facilitate better information visibility across the supply chain system and contribute to inventory accuracy at the National and County operating levels,” she added.