- Yumbya warned the medics against telling patients to go for treatment or tests in private clinics or laboratories located outside public hospitals.
- He cautioned civil servants against selling government drugs, pharmaceuticals and non-pharmaceuticals supplies.
Image: GEORGE OWITI
Barely a month after Machakos Governor Wavinya Ndeti revealed the problems in her predecessor’s administration with at least five underage being in the county’s payroll, more revelations have emerged.
An impromptu visit by Dr Daniel Yumbya to the Kangundo Subcounty Level 4 Hospital on Wednesday exposed the rot at the facility.
Dr Yumbya’s motorcade pulled at the facility’s parking lot minutes past 8am. The former Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentists Council CEO was accompanied by members of Machakos county assembly’s Health committee.
He termed the visit as "fact-finding and inspection" of the facility that serves hundreds of patients each day.
The team went round the facility inspecting all departments, starting with a patient’s typical process once he visits the hospital for medical services until when he leaves the facility either satisfied or otherwise.
At the patient’s admission office, Yumbya and the team raised concerns with services’ payments systems. They questioned the hospital’s management on the Mpesa paybill number 1616160 used by patients to pay for health services.
“How efficient and safe is the mobile payment system. How will you ascertain that the Mpesa message showed to you by a patient seeking medication at the facility is genuine and not edited?” the Health said.
The officials who visited various departments found workers missing in some of the departments. Yumbya asked for phone contacts and called some to find out their whereabouts.
One of the workers said he was at his home in Malaa, Machakos county.
A radiologist told the officials that the only x-ray machine in the department had not been functioning for several months. This kept the public wondering what else she was doing at the facility as she kept earning a salary.
“Today (Wednesday), we have made an impromptu visit to Kangundo Level 4 Hospital...and found the following: hospital employees report to work aimlessly and leave aimlessly, there are no systems to show that one has reported to work at what time and left what time," Yumbya said.
"But what is surprising is that this hospital has 15 specialists’ doctors, but only four are at work. Others aren’t there and their whereabouts aren’t known.
“I am issuing a directive to all health workers in Machakos county that if you have been employed to work, whether as a casual, secretary, nurse or doctor, go to work and serve the public in line with your employment letter.”
The Health executive said the operations will continue in other health facilities across the nine subcounties.
He told those responsible for making procurement requests for hospitals’ supplies to do so in order for all the departments to fully operate as required.
Yumbya added that drugs which not needed in public hospitals should not be supplied to the public institutions.
“There is a process of ordering and being supplied with what you want. You must ensure that those drugs are used on patients who need them if they get to hospitals,” he said.
He warned the medics against telling patients to go for treatment or tests in private clinics or laboratories located outside public hospitals, adding that doctors or nurses found culpable will be sacked.
Yumbya cautioned civil servants against selling government drugs, pharmaceuticals and non-pharmaceuticals supplies
He urged Machakos county assembly to table and pass a motion for all ward hospitals to have a doctor deployed and necessary medical supplies delivered to decongest hospitals.
(edited by Amol Awuor)