Siaya — Siaya Governor James Orengo has appealed to the national government to ensure they release all funds pertaining to functions already devolved in the Constitution.
Orengo was particular with the health sector, which he said counties are struggling to fund functions devolved but no funds trickling to the counties.
"As we take a greater burden in terms of offering medical services, again the national government must learn to make funds follow functions," he said.
Over the years, since the advent of devolution, Governor Orengo said counties have borne the brunt of giving medical services to the people yet not all funds are given out to the counties.
"Most of the time, the county governments are carrying this heavy burden but the funds remain with the national government," he said.
Speaking in Kisumu on Monday during the launch of a capacity strengthening of mission hospitals in Kisumu and Siaya counties, Orengo noted that the kitty funding health at the counties falls short of what was prescribed in the 2010 Constitution.
"What the counties are currently receiving from the national government in terms of funding the health sector, is not in accordance with the structure that is well laid down in the Constitution," he said.
The two year project was funded by Catholic Relief Services (CRS) to the tune of Sh. 97.5 million will see 17 mission hospitals in the two counties improve the quality of health services.
CRS Partnership, Capacity and Strengthening and Local Leadership Manager George Okoth, said during a recent supervision study they realized that there was an issue of quality of healthcare in both public and mission health facilities in the two counties.
"The study unearthed poor health care services, so we are starting with mission health facilities to see how we can improve their quality of health services to the people," he said.
Okoth said CRS is working closely with other partners to address the aspect of quality healthcare.
"In partnership with Pharm Access, we have trained quite a number of health staff from Siaya and Kisumu on the improvement of health services," he said.
He further announced that they have brought in Strathmore University on board to support the training of healthcare leadership, so as to have a business plan.
Okoth said the engagement is bringing together the private sector, faith based organizations (mission hospitals) and the county governments with an aim of sustaining the facilities through developing business plans.
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Governor Orengo hailed the project noting that in all the sub counties in Siaya, there exists at least two mission hospitals in each sub county.
Soon, Siaya County is signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with CRS to scale up the engagement.
"Very soon, we are putting pen to paper, the intervention will cover all our mission hospitals," he said.
Orengo said the counties in the lake region have disease burden that calls for partnership to address and the intervention through CRS is timely and welcomed.
Kisumu Deputy Governor Dr Mathews Owili who represented Governor Anyang Nyong'o during the event equally underscored the importance of the partnership.
Owili said some of the health functions are financed through county revenue funds, own source revenue, with the human resource component taking the bulk of such funding.
"Partnerships such as this one, therefore, come to help counties to bridge the budget gap," he said.
He said the systems' strengthening of the health sector will help better service delivery in Kisumu and Siaya counties.
