Saturday, November 08, 2014
Mandera residents have said there is no medicine in hospitals in the county.
Halima Ali Surrow, a patient at Mandera Referral Hospital, told the Star yesterday that she has only received painkillers for the two weeks she has been admitted.
“I am only given Panadol,” she said.
A pharmacist at the hospital said most drugs got finished two months ago and the administration concentrated on infrastructure after First Lady Margaret Kenyatta promised to visit the facility.
“Our bosses have been planting flowers around this dry place in the name of receiving the First Lady for the Beyond Zero campaign and forgotten about stocking the pharmacy and the plight of the sick,” the pharmacist said.
Our source said some drugs end up in private clinics in town owned by some health officers.
“Once the drugs are supplied, much of it is taken by senior people here to their clinics in town who later supply it as contractors,” said the source.
Mandera county director for Health Abdi Maalim said the hospitals are yet to receive Sh36 million drugs from the Kenya Medical Supplies Authority.
“We are expecting them from next week, but for now we have received some emergency drugs from other contractors,” he said.
Maalim said the shortage at the Mandera hospital is due to the high number of patients coming from Somalia and Ethiopia.
He said transportation of drugs is delayed because Mandera is far from Nairobi and the bad roads in the northern region.