A potential time bomb has been set by the Kenyan government over the huge debt that is bringing down the supply of medical supplies. Many have already seen medical risks after it was revealed that health centres have been operating without drugs for more than six months now.
According to County Assembly Health committee, hospitals received the last batch of drugs in August last year.
Deputy Director of Medical Services Irene Muchoki said the county faced a crisis which might force patients seeking pharmaceutical services to turn to expensive private facilities.
“The situation is tricky because so far our county hospitals [have] only received drugs once in this financial year and that was last August,” said Dr Muchoki.
This is not the first time the county has been caught flat-footed. Drugs shortage has been a recurring case with City Hall owing Kenya Medical Supplies Authority (Kemsa) Sh309 million for medicine supplied over the years as far back as 2014.
The deadlock between Kemsa and the county has seen the agency fail to supply drugs to county health centres severally.
The Authority has an agreement with counties that requires the devolved units to make payments within 45 days after delivery and blacklists those that default.
Interestingly, in the current financial year, the county government has set aside Sh747 million for health commodities but only Sh70 million has been used to offset the debt.
“We have used Sh70 million from the amount we had set aside to pay Kemsa and that was when drugs were delivered in August. The remaining Sh677 million has not been spent,” said Dr Muchoki.
The Authority supplied drugs to Nairobi County in February 2017 before stopping due to non-payment only to resume on August 18 last year when it delivered products worth Sh146.6 million.