BY EMMANUEL KIPRUTO
In our community, access to healthcare had been a major challenge for many years. The local dispensary Kapsenda dispensary, though built, was not functional. It lacked power, and without electricity, critical services such as drug preservation, maternal care, and emergency treatment could not be provided. There was no health worker to attend the patients.
Due to the inactivity of the facility, the society was very sad that there is a facility that could help them get primary healthcare medication, but it’s not functional that have resulting in them wasting resources and time to travel to other places in search of the basic medication. This also resulted to sad news as people were losing their loved ones because they failed to receive first aid treatment that could sustain the patient as he or she Is being referred to another hospital for further treatment.
Because of inactivity, the place had been left bushy, giving a bad image to the place and also resulting in vandalism of some things in there, like water taps, the gate, and the fence, which restricted intrusion.
The society of Kapsenda really suffered as even children from Kapsenda primary and secondary school, and also a neighboring school, Chumba Primary school, were forced to travel to a distant healthcare center, which made them waste their study time in search of basic healthcare medication. Vaccination was also threatened as Mothers were forced to walk for distances to get their children vaccinated, which sometimes missed to get the vaccines due to delays.
Our (CBO)Kericho youth Policy Network under the Siasa Place took up the responsibility to fight for the right of our people to access healthcare. We mobilized the community through a tournament, held meetings with local leaders, and consistently engaged with relevant authorities to push for the dispensary to be equipped and operational.
After months of persistence, our efforts bore fruit. Electricity was installed at the dispensary, and with it came a fully functioning refrigerator for storing vaccines and medicines. More importantly, a health worker was posted to the dispensary. This transformation means that our community can now access timely healthcare, immunization services, and emergency care without having to travel long distances.
Also, the society benefited a lot as they started to access electricity to their homes because of the available power lines to the dispensary, which brought light to the people of Kapsenda. Security was also assured to the neighborhood as a security officer was employed to take care of the Facility.
Today, the dispensary stands as a symbol of what collective action can achieve. Families are healthier, children can access life-saving vaccines on time, and the burden of walking long distances to other facilities has been lifted.
.
