Kirinyaga nurses awarded for exemplary performance as Waiguru’s Service delivery reforms bear fruits
Thirteen nurses from Kirinyaga County have been awarded by the Beyond Zero initiative for their exemplary performance in promotion of primary healthcare services. The nurses who were drawn from various health facilities won the awards after a vigorous vetting process by the First Lady Margaret Kenyatta’s led Beyond Zero secretariat. While eight nurses won the Nurse Practitioner Award, five of them were awarded for the Nurse-led Initiatives award. Some of the parameters for awarding included proven application of skills and innovations to add value to the services offered to their respective communities. The frontline health workers were recognized for their contribution towards the achievement of Universal Health Coverage (UHC).
The awards come at a time when the county’s health sector has been undergoing a robust service delivery and infrastructural reforms spearheaded by Governor Anne Waiguru with an aim of enhancing health services provision to the county residents.
The governor has congratulated the nurses saying that the awards were well deserved for the hardworking officers, at the same time encouraging the entire health workforce to keep working hard towards quality service provision. She said that her administration has been keen on giving the requisite support to health sector to ensure that they perform as required. The governor said that provision of primary healthcare is the corner stone of UHC since it is the first point of contact for many patients. Waiguru has pledged to hire more medical specialists for deployment in new medical facilities that she has built in the county. She said she is also considering the promotion of health workers in the upcoming county budget.
Governor Waiguru has built the Ultra-modern Kerugoya Medical Complex, 19 new dispensaries and health Centres while the upgrading of Kimbimbi and Kianyaga hospitals from level three to four is ongoing. Speaking at the awarding ceremony held in Kerugoya, the County Nursing Officer Mrs. Mary Muriithi said that the 13 finalists were selected out of 36 entries from the county. Evelyne Wangeci Ndegwa, the overall winner of the Nurse-led Initiative Award, said that she got the award after a lot of hard work to ensure that more women turn up for reproductive health services at Karumande Health Center where she serves. Wangeci spearheaded an intensive community engagement program that identified the challenges that made women shy away from seeking such services. Together with her team, she analyzed the feedback from the community thereby informing interventions to address some of the challenges that hindered women from coming out. She said that with such innovations, the number of women seeking such services have since doubled.
Samuel Ngumo, the nurse in charge of Joshua Mbai Dispensary and who was also awarded, expressed his gratitude for the recognition which he said came as a result of hard work of ensuring that his clients enjoyed the best services that his facility can offer. He thanked Governor Waiguru for spearheading reforms in the health sector in the county to enable them offer quality services to the residents. He encouraged his colleagues to go out of their way to ensure that the needs of their clients are met.
