Patients at Kwirwot health centre III in Suam Sub-county in Bukwo district spend the night outside the ward for fear of being buried alive. The walls of the wards have developed huge cracks, raising fears that they could cave in anytime soon.
As a result, the majority of the patients sleep on the verandah for their own safety. Ruth Chemutai, one of the patients at the facility, told URN that whenever it clocked night hours, they moved out of the wards, fearing that the walls would fall on them at anytime.
I am worried and I don’t know when I will be discharged from this place. I am not settled because of those cracks, “she said, pointing to huge cracks on the walls. Sarah Chebet, a cleaner at the facility, says the cracks are scary to everyone at the facility. According to Chebet, the cracks keep expanding whenever it rains heavily.
“We have no option. It’s just God protecting us,” she said. The Kwirwot health centre III in Charge, Geoffrey Chelimo, says that although the buildings were condemned, they still operate in them since they have no alternative. “These are condemned buildings but we still use them because we don’t have any option. We can’t stop receiving and admitting patients,” he said.
Emmanuel Sikuku, the LC III chairperson of Suam town council, says that the Local Government Minister, Rapheal Magyezi, and his counterpart, Peter Ogwang, the former State Minister of Economic Monitoring, visited the facility last year and promised to make some intervention, but to date, nothing has happened.
“The two ministers visited the health centre and promised to deal with the contractor who took the money and failed to complete the work on what was supposed to be a new block for the health center, but up to now we are not seeing anything,” he said.
Julius Chelimo, the Bukwo LC V Chairperson, says that the situation would have been saved if the contractor had completed the maternity wing, OPD, and staff houses. “There was a contractor that was awarded the contract to construct the new outpatient department, maternity ward, general wards, and staff houses, but he has failed to complete the work even after taking Shillings 800 million,” he said.
Samuel Hashaka Mpimbaza, the Bukwo Resident District Commissioner, says the dilapidated structures at the health centre are a security threat to the public.