EDITORIAL: Medical kits saga a shame

It is puzzling that five years on the government is still grappling with expensive leased medical equipment that lies idle in hospitals and requires even more funding to be put into use.

The Energy Ministry says it requires more than Sh10 billion to connect or upgrade electricity connectivity to all Level 2 to Level 5 hospitals for the leased medical equipment service (MES).

This comes months after a Senate committee investigating the MES programme last year said that the equipment is lying idle in 25 counties due to lack of electricity and water supplies as taxpayers pay billions for the Sh38 billion project.

The project has been clouded in controversy since its inception five years ago with governors blaming the Ministry of Health for lack of consultations on the programme implementation.

As a result, taxpayers get nothing from the resources and especially at a time the health systems are under scrutiny due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Because economic challenges keep taking different shapes, it calls for prudence in the allocation and use of resources by deploying them to key result areas for most returns.

We need to go back to the drawing board on the MES since it is not right to keep deploying limited resources with no gain.