Lobby groups championing matters of health in Nakuru county have called for need to empower Community Health Facilityacility Committees.

The groups argued that the formation of CHFCs was to close gaps in aeevict delivery and to hold health facilities accountable for the quality and comprehensive services.

However,this has not been the case as most CHFCs are powerless due to lack of capacity building.

Francis Shinali from Nakuru Town East Neighbourhood Association, said the empowerment of the committees is key in ensuring they play their mandate of oversight in delivery of community health services, promote social accountability and mobilize resources for community health.

Shinali, who is a former CHFCs official in one of the Nakuru health facilities, added that the challenges facing the committees should be addressed for better services.

“We call on county government and other organizations to step in and ensure the committees are empowered through capacity building trainings so that we can better services in our health facilities” he said.

Shinali was speaking in Nakuru on Tuesday during a social accountability tools training for community action cells in enhancing the capacity of community members to engage in social audit through health monitoring in budget expenditure.

On his part Martin Lunalo from Reproductive Health Youth Friendly and Environment Conservation (RHYFE), called for need to ensure the fight on corruption in the country is successful.

According to Lunalo, corruption has continued to deprive off Kenyans the right to access better healthcare services.

“We cannot have better healthcare services simply because some people somewhere are embezzling funds.We call on investigating agencies and EACC to ensure all people mentioned in corruption scandals are prosecuted” said Lunalo.

Lisa Owino, a Lawyer working with Kenya Legal & Ethical Issues Network (KELIN) challenged communities to continue fighting for their rights to healthcare services.

Ms Owino noted that low public participation in policy and law-making has continued to hinder service delivery.

She also called on the members of the Nakuru Reproductive Health Network not to grow weary in putting the county government on toss as far as matters health services concerned.

While pointing out lack of knowledge and technical capacity as key challenges in community, Owino assured that  KELIN will continue to partner with like-minded organizations to address the same.

“There is need for capacity building within communities to help inform critical networks to push for their priorities to be included in both policies, laws and budgets and ensure implementation of same” said Owino.

People travelling to Nakuru from Western Kenya and Nyanza counties have been advised to self-isolate and take a COVID-19 test in a measure to curb the virus spread.

Governor Lee Kinyanjui in a notice said the COVID-19 positivity rate in Busia, Vihiga, Kisii, Nyamira, Kakamega, Bungoma, Kericho, Bomet, Trans Nzoia, Kisumu, Siaya, Homa-Bay and Migori counties is worrisome.

“At 20.5 per cent and rising, we have good reason to consider the trend as ‘a crisis in the making,” he stated adding that the more virulent Indian variant is worsening situations.

He said his administration was monitoring the situation with great caution and shall not hesitate to take up preemptive measures to protect residents and visitors.

In the precautionary statement based on the case situation, the Governor said it will be necessary to reduce travel to the highlighted region to bare necessity.

On average, Nakuru County has an attack rate of 229/100,000 population. This means in every 100,000 people sampled, 229 are highly likely to be infected with COVID-19.

Since March 30, 2020, when the first case was reported in Nakuru County, a total of 8610 COVID-19 confirmed cases and 275 deaths have been reported.

Governor Lee Kinyanjui has called for the formulation of an institutional framework to ensure poor, elderly and vulnerable people have free medical cover.

He said he had received passionate pleas from patients and their families in public hospitals for waiver of medical bills owing to the difficult economic times.

However, the Governor said, eventual waivers would see non-payment of bills amounting to millions of shillings and would have negative effects on the entire healthcare system.

“Consequently, the Health facility will not be able to pay suppliers of medicine and other medical supplies as well as staff,” he stated in a Facebook post this evening.

He added that in the long run, patients would complain of no medicine and poor staffing while employees would be demotivated by salary delays and poor equipment.

On the contrary, he decried, if his administration remained adamant and restricted waivers to a bare minimum, the public would perceive the move as insensitive and discriminative.

“For the best interest of the sector, a fund must be created to run on the same basis as the bursary kitty, to help insure the poor citizens and pay for the desperate,” he suggested.