KEMSA Automates Lake Basin Supply Chain

To serve the Nyanza region counties efficiently, the Kenya Medical Supplies Authority (KEMSA) has streamlined operations at the Kisumu Regional Supply Chain Centre, which mirrors the national supply chain centre at Embakasi, Nairobi, the Authority’s CEO Terry Ramadhani has confirmed.

Speaking when she hosted Homa Bay County Governor-Elect Gladys Wanga in her office on Friday, Ramadhani said the Authority has invested more than $250,501 in Kisumu regional supply centre to provide improved services to Kisumu, Homa Bay, Kisii, Migori, and Busia Counties, among others.

“To serve the Nyanza region counties efficiently, KEMSA has recently managed to align its business processes and significantly automate them through the Authority’s Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Logistics Management Information System (LMIS) and the KEMSA e-mobile service that facilitates on-time stocks fulfilment to public health facilities,” Ramadhani said. “For counties such as Homa Bay, among others, we have successfully integrated our systems to ensure a seamless and efficient order management process that will enable swifter turnaround times,” she said.

As part of the KEMSA 2.0 strategy, Ramadhani pledged to provide full support to Homa Bay County, among other counties seeking to roll out tailor-made health delivery programmes. The county, she said, had accessed health supplies from KEMSA worth more than $1 million in the last financial year, comprising TB drugs, Antiretroviral therapies, HIV test kits, antimalarials, and family planning commodities.

On her part, Governor-Elect Gladys Wanga pledged to drastically transform the county’s health facilities through a collaborative model encompassing public and private sector players. She said the Homa Bay County Health transformation programme will focus on cutting disease prevalence with a specific focus on maternal and child interventions.

The health transformation plan was one of the critical pillars in Governor-Elect Wanga’s manifesto. It will be incorporated in the third Homa Bay County Integrated Development Plan (CIDP) and the third health sector strategic and investment plan (HSSIP) to guide health sector priorities implementation.

To ensure the programme’s success, Wanga disclosed that her county will strive to ringfence health revenues and budget allocations to guarantee settlement of pharmaceutical bills, health workers’ salaries and other operating expenses.

“You can take this to the bank, health finances and revenue in Homa Bay will be used for health operating expenses, and we shall also partner with public bodies such as KEMSA and private sector players to provide quality services,” Wanga said.

She explained that the Homa Bay County Health transformation programme would incorporate the deployment of community health workers to deliver primary health management, surveillance and outreach solutions for Malaria, HIV, Non-communicable diseases and Nutrition to reduce the current disease burden.

The programme, she added, will also focus on mainstreaming health facilities and providing productivity-based reward schemes for health workers in the country.

“I have a dream to transform Homa Bay county health facilities by reducing the disease burden by ensuring that we have a working health system with well-equipped and stocked pharmaceutical commodities,” Wanga said. “Ahead of my inauguration next week, I have prioritised engagement with KEMSA to establish a working relationship that will allow Homa Bay to achieve the dream of being a model health service providing county in the Lake basin region,” she added.

Homa Bay County has 262 health facilities, one teaching and referral hospital, and two medical training institutes (Homa Bay and Rachuonyo KMTCs).