Medical supplies unit revives health care at Kwale rural hospital

KWALE: The medical supplies unit at Kinango Sub-county has improved healthcare in the area, helping to contain contagious diseases and reduce the amount of time and money spent on getting medication.

The two-wing unit, which is the biggest in Kwale County, has cost Sh8 million and was opened in April by Governor Salim Mvurya.

Previously, the hospital would get supplies from Msambweni, more than 50km away on a rough road, or even the provincial general hospital in Mombasa, a one-and-a-half-hour trip.

"One of the greatest challenges we had was of drugs being destroyed by heat due to lack of cooling facilities at the hospital's former store," says the hospital's medical superintendent, Dr Abdala Fankupi.

That store was actually meant to be a paediatric unit at Kinango Hospital, and the putting up of a proper medical supplies unit means there is now space for a paediatric wing at the hospital.

Fankupi says that the medical supplies unit has not only helped improve healthcare in the sub-county and by extension Kwale County.

Without giving specifics, Fankupi says there has been a drastic drop in the number of cases of preventable deaths from infectious diseases due to lack of medicine.

"When there were no drugs at the hospital, patients would travel long distances to get medicine, which was costly. Some would succumb to treatable illnesses such as malaria," the doctor says.

Dr Kishindo Maleso, Chief Officer of Health in Kwale County, says three more medical supplies units are being constructed in the sub-counties of Matuga, Lungalunga and Msambweni.