Relief to patients as County waves all dispensary service charges

The County Government of Meru will start offering free medical services to patients in all of its dispensaries according to Meru Governor Peter Munya.

Governor Munya has ordered his administration to immediately wave laboratory tests including other charges to ease service delivery to the people and improve the health sector in the county. He said that before his term as governor lapse, 29 dispensaries will have been built to add to the current 136 in the county. "My government has prioritised on the health sector, all services offered in the dispensaries should be free. I call upon the administrators to start implementing the directive immediately," said Munya.

He said his administration had fulfilled promises he made to electorates since devolution despite challenges his government has experienced. He spoke during the State of the County Address. "Before devolution we had only 89 dispensaries but today we have 136. We have reduced the distance patients used to travel for about 13 kilometres to seek treatment and after the four years to seven. This is because we have built more dispensaries, health centres and rehabilitated the sub county hospitals by installing modern equipment," he said.

The Council of governors said his government has transformed the Meru teaching and referral hospital (MTRH) and had plans to set a seven storey integrated ward at the facility. "We have installed renal dialysis machines where our people pay a subsidized fee which is usually done through the NHIF. The number of beds has also been increased from 720 which were there in 2013 to 1089 at the MTRH. We target to have 2000 beds at the facility in two years' time," he said.

He added that death rate for new born babies have decreased due to increased maternity wings and equipment in the facilities. "The deaths of new born have also lowered as a result of installation of more incubators and built more maternities," Munya said. Munya said his administration will install C-T scan machine and Digital X-ray machines to the 16 sub-county hospitals. "We pay health workers salary amounting to Sh. 1.6 billion. Meru County lead other counties on health, there are 2000 health workers working within the county. We were the first to employ nurses on the Economic stimulus. The County uses Sh.220 million to purchase medicines," said Munya.