'You'll no longer need to go to hospital for minor ailments,' Ruto says as he flags off 100K medical kits

President William Ruto on Monday flagged off 100,000 kits for community health promoters to county governments for deployment.

This is part of the Universal Healthcare (UHC) programme he is expected to launch during this year’s Mashujaa Day celebrations on October 20, where the government will deploy 103,000 health promoters across the country.

Each promoter will be responsible for 100 households and equipped with basic medical equipment for household health screening.

Speaking at Uhuru Park in Nairobi, Ruto said the kits will be provided by the national government through the Ministry of Health.

Promoters will also get smartphones to make them reachable and to enable them to transmit and receive necessary information, instruction and advice.

“The national and county governments will co-share the responsibility for the remuneration in the form of stipends for the 100,000 community health promoters who will work in each of our 47 counties,” said Ruto.

Ruto termed the initiative a bold statement of his government’s intent towards achieving freedom from disease.

“This is also our celebration of critical victories in this struggle: Victory for citizen well-being and freedom from disease, for devolution and collaboration between national and county governments, for the bottom-up economic transformation agenda and, most importantly, an immense victory for the people of Kenya,” the president said.

He noted that his plan is to have Kenyans no longer travelling to a health facility for basic screening and the treatment of minor ailments, as well as preventative and promotive healthcare.

“Instead, health facilities in the form of these kits, and the community healthcare workers who shall operate them, shall go to Kenyans and serve them at their homes,” Ruto said.

President Ruto at the same time urged the community health promoters and healthcare workers to serve Kenyans with zeal and motivation and to be compassionate, respectful, gentle and thoroughly professional.

A complete health promoter’s kit includes a backpack carrier bag, first aid box, jacket, weighing scale, infrared clinical thermometer and two mid-upper arm circumference (MUAC) measuring tapes for paediatric and adult use.

The health promoters will be trained by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). 

The government is set to spend Ksh.3.5 billion on the programme that aims at detecting health issues early, managing minor ones at the community level and decongesting hospitals.