Health must remain a devolved function

Over the past month, there have been consistent and sustained calls for the health function to be reverted to the national government. This has been as a result of the perceived mismanagement of the health function by county governments.

There have been well documented cases of doctors and other health workers going on strike from Mombasa County to Murang’a County due to late payment of salaries. Other reasons include poor working conditions and lack of drugs.

Despite the above concerns which are grave in nature, we must also appreciate that many counties have done a lot of good things in the health sector.

Some hospitals have acquired dialysis machines, CT scans and other medical equipment for the first time since independence. Most counties have invested in ambulances to take patients to hospital.

We forget that the national government has had this function for the last 50 years yet the sector has been plagued by numerous challenges. We have been with devolution for only two-and-a-half years yet we are passing a harsh judgment.

I agree that probably we should have allowed the human resource function to be domiciled at the national government and have a Health Management Commission.

The national and county governments should work together to find solutions to the problems bedevilling the sector. Given the problems that the national government is experiencing in the education sector, do we really want to add more issues to them? Whatever the problems we are experiencing, health must remain a devolved function.