By Christopher Omondi
Obunga dispensary initially brought optimism to the residents of Kamakowa when it was opened in July of 2022 by the current governor of Kisumu County, Professor Peter Anyang’ Nyong’o. The community was promised a well-equipped facility that would have adequate supplies and staff who would ensure effective service delivery.
According to the Ministry of Health report on their websites, the facility is a level 2 dispensary, which should be open 24 hours, has one inpatient bed and one Emergency casualty bed. But all these have failed to deliver to the residents of Kamakowa in Railways ward in Kisumu County as the facility has failed to live up to its expectations just three years since its opening.
The poor conditions are a result of unprofessionalism and ignorance, as this widely exposes the poor services that the residents of Kamakowa have been enduring amidst the poor governance in maintaining the day-to-day operations of the Obunga Dispensary.
To the residents of Kamakowa, the facility has fallen short of even basic needs such as water and medicine, with concerns that the facility is not operational at night or even during weekends.
According to the residents, even the commitment from the people working at the facility is uncalled for, with reports of patients being turned away from the facility because of the Social Health Insurance Fund.
“When this facility was built, no piping was done, and this means any water supply into the facility is sourced from outside, which mostly inconveniences operations as water sources are not readily available.’’ Hilary Wanga said about the water situation in the area. “We also have a shortage of drugs in this hospital, as every time we are treated in this facility, we are mostly advised to buy drugs from pharmacies, as most cannot be administered at the dispensary. You also won’t believe that this dispensary only functions during the day and only on weekdays.’’
Aisha Saum also commented on the medicine part. There were also comments from the residents on the professionalism of the stuff who work at the dispensary as highlighted by Andrew Opiyo, “I escorted an elderly man to the facility who couldn’t walk due to his injuries but on reaching the dispensary they demanded we provide the man’s Social Health Authority so a to check on him, we were turned away as the man could not provide his SHA’’.
The dispensary should be reporting to the Kenya Health Information System for monitoring of service delivery, planning, and resource allocation. The public is entitled to advocate for a detailed report from the KHIS on their investigations upon monitoring to give a clear picture of why there is such unprofessionalism. Poor quality services are hurting our community at the grassroots level.
