Campaigns must not mask urgent need to rectify medical sector ills

The ongoing nurses' strike enters its eighth day. With medical services partially devolved, both the national and county governments must address the issue, yet neither the President, his deputy or county governors have deemed it fit to do so. This is worrying, for it would seem their preoccupation is with political campaigns in readiness for the August 8 elections.

Daily reports of deaths at hospitals across the country are depressing. A doctor at the Kakamega general hospital was not spared the pain of the strike, losing his eight-month-old baby, reason being that nurses had locked up all oxygen cylinders; hence he could not find any to sustain the baby's life.