Hospitals in a crisis due to Sh367 million Kemsa debt
Nairobi Metropolitan Services Director General Mohamed Badi addresses journalists during the official opening og Ng’undu-Kamulu Level Three Hospital in Ruai last year.
A shortage of drugs is looming in health facilities in the county amid reports that the last medical supplies was made over a year ago.
This follows a tussle between Nairobi Metropolitan Services (NMS) and the Kenya Medical Supplies Authority (Kemsa) over a debt owed to the latter, with patients forced to buy drugs and other medical supplies from private chemists.
Supplementary budget
Acting Kemsa chief executive John Kabuchi said the county government owes the agency more than Sh367 million.
This, despite the county assembly allocating Sh374.9 million in its first supplementary budget in May last year to pay the debt.
“The Nairobi Metropolitan Service currently has an outstanding bill of Sh367,659,727.10. They last serviced their account on May 17, 2021,” said Mr Kabuchi in a statement.
He explained that the last supply made to the more than 100 county health facilities was done on January 28 last year, which is just three days shy of a year today.
Mr Kabuchi added that the situation has affected more than 10 new Level Two and Three hospitals built by NMS.
Worryingly, Kemsa has also not received any medical supplies order from the Lieutenant General Mohamed Badi-led entity.
“Kemsa has not received any order for the new hospitals. We have no valid local purchase orders from NMS. The one which came in the last financial year was not supplied due to the huge outstanding debt,” he said.
A spot check by the Nation established that most of the hospitals were in a dire situation, with even basic drugs like Panadol missing in pharmacies.
Health workers said the problem cuts across all the new health facilities.
“If you go to the pharmacy, you will only find slow moving medicine while the fast moving ones like Panadol are not there,” said one of the nurses at one of the new facilities the Nation visited.
Interestingly, in the Sh2.51 billion second supplementary budget passed by the county assembly in December last year, no allocation was set aside to settle the pending bill in spite of Sh1.4 billion being allocated for various pending bills.
Kenya Urban Roads Authority received Sh300 million, the same as Kenya Revenue Authority, while Kenya Power was allocated Sh200 million.
Stopping supplies
Surprisingly, Sh100 million was set aside for foreign and domestic travels for top executive officials and members of the county assembly.
The back and forth between Kemsa and NMS has been going on for years with the drugs agency time and again stopping supplies to county hospitals over the debt.
