By Lydia Wanaswa
The M-PESA foundation will set up a modern maternity unit at Naitiri sub- county hospital in Bungoma County worth 45 million.
The unit will consist of antenatal and delivery rooms, post-natal amenities as well as improvements to the newborn unit.
The foundations recent health programmes in Bungoma County includes several fistula camps at Webuye County hospital where over 200 women received free treatment and surgeries from the county and beyond.
According to the chairman of Safaricom Foundation, Joseph Ogutu the foundation partners with governments in all 47 counties to ensure that the required infrastructure and equipment is in place to enable quality, affordable and accessible services.
“We invest in health through various programmes which address critical needs in our communities, among them are maternal and child health,” said Mr. Ogutu
However, the foundation also partnered with Zuri health to hold a comprehensive medical camp at Posta Grounds, Bungoma County in June last year where 3,000 residents benefitted from an array of health services including eye care consultations, breast cancer screening, fistula screening, dental care and general doctor consultations.
According to Bungoma Governor Kenneth Lusaka, this project by safaricom foundation that is supposed to be done within six months is going to change the lives of people, he also called upon safaricom to create job opportunities for people in the construction and use the local suppliers.
The county boss has also implored the nurses who are on strike to get back to work so that they can reach an agreement while on duty noting that compared to other counties, in Bungoma County 235peoplewere promoted from contract to permanent and pensionable stating that one of the complain was shortage of nurses.
“This week we have deployed 568 newly recruited nurses and doctors in our facilities,” he said
However, the governor made it clear to the people of Bungoma County that SHA is working.
The Health and Sanitation CECM Carolyne Makali said that the modern maternity unit is going to solve a big problem of maternal, child health and theatre services as the existing maternity unit only accommodated around 50 mothers and was not in a good condition, she also congratulated the community health promoters for the good work in the Social Health Authority Programme (SHA)
“By today morning we had registered 282,000 people from Bungoma county,” she said
Caleb Watta, the director in charge of health and sanitation noted that Naitiri as a sub- county is a level 4 facility and number four in terms of size in Bungoma County adding that its serving a very large catchment area that extends all the way to Kakamega and Trans Nzoia county, he also said that the structure they are coming up with will have many services under one roof.
The foundation will also set aside ksh 50 million to construct a modern maternity unit at Nasewa Health Centre in Matayos Sub-County, Busia County where about 12,000 residents will benefit from maternal and child health services.
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