Governor James Ongwae has pledged to dispense more than 300,000 NHIF cards to vulnerable families in the county, which means about 80,000 people in every ward out of the 45 wards making up the county will get the card without any pay.
Speaking at Gusii Stadium during Kenya's 51st Jamuhuri Day celebrations, Ongwae noted the need to provide poor families with the social security cards since many of the residents can not afford medical services due to financial concentraint.
"My goverment realized there is dire need in my county since many residents lose their lives because they can not meet medical expences due to poverty, and that is why am about to role out the free NHIF cards throughout the county to help the third class residents to meet their medical expenses," he said.
On the other hand, governor said his government has increased the Ward Development Fund from Ksh.45 million to Ksh.135 million to help rehabillitating health centers and dispensaries at ward level.
"I have increased the Ward Development Fund from Ksh.45 million in our last financial year to Ksh.135 in this financial year meaning each ward will get Ksh.3 million, and this is after I realized the last allocation was not enough to meet demands," he reiterated.
Ongwae said they are also slated to launch an important service,CT Scan machine to Kisii Teaching & Referral Hospital to help patients with scanning services.
"We will launch a Computer Tomographic machine in our referral hospital on Thursday next week, to help patients who have been seeking the service outside," he said amid concerns from residents that Kisii being the only referral hospital in the region, should not miss such important machine.
He noted other tremendous achievements his government has registered for the last 18 months, ranging from building a larger and well equiped phamacy in the hopital to a spacious and more accomodating morturay.
"My goverment has made other significant strides in health for the last eighteen months: We have built a hundred body mortuary capacity with proper cooling faccillities contrary to the current one which accommodates only twenty bodies, a morden pharmacy with adequated drugs, and a private wing is underway to mention a few," he listed.