<< Click to Display Table of Contents >> Navigation:  Health and Sanitation > Strategic Plan > CHSIP 2018-2022 > 3.3 Health Products

Commodities play a vital role in the health care service delivery. Availability and accessibility of health commodities is one of the key factors that build confidence and trust of the community in the health system. Next to work force, health commodities take up a large percentage of the health care budget. It is therefore important to ensure that the county is able to ensure accessibility and availability of health commodities to cater for the health care needs of the population.

 

With the institutional changes following the devolution process, KEMSA no longer pushes commodities to the counties but supplies as per the orders of the county. The county has sometimes received fewer supplies than ordered and has had to follow up with KEMSA to avoid stock outs.

In general, facility staff does not do a good job in quantification as many orders from facilities are often inaccurate either under or over ordering on the medicines. This leads to either to overstocking and stock outs in and among facilities. The county has 17 pharmaceutical staff located in the bigger facilities and including those in the county management teams. These are a small number for the 120 facilities in the county. In mitigation, a system for pharmaceutical supervision and redistribution of drugs among the facilities should be in place but there is no vehicle allocated for this. The county has only one Medicines and Therapeutic Committee (MTC) at Iten hospital and hence the rational use of commodities is hardly enforced in the county.