Health workers' unions in Meru County have welcomed the move by the county government to hand over the Meru Teaching and Referral Hospital (MeTRH) to the national government.
The Kenya Union of Clinical Officers (Kuco) and the Kenya National Union of Nurses (Knun) welcomed Governor Isaac Mutuma's announcement that the devolved unit plans to surrender the hospital to the Ministry of Health.
For a long time, health unions and other stakeholders had called on the national government to take over the hospital for better management.
They had argued that the devolved unit lacked the financial and human resources capacity to effectively manage the hospital.
Governor Mutuma said that handing over the hospital to the national government will save the county huge amounts of money used to run it.
He said the idea was to surrender the facility to the central government so that the monies the devolved unit uses to run it can be used to improve other health facilities.
"We have initiated plans to transfer the MeTRH to the national government so that it can be managed like the Kenyatta National Hospital. That will allow us to use our funds to improve Nyambene, Mikinduri, Katheri, Timau, and other hospitals," said Mutuma.
In his most recent visit to Meru, President William Ruto said the hospital was wrongly classified as a referral facility and committed to ensuring that the national government upgrades it.
Dr Ruto said he was ready to take it over and transform it into a Level Six facility, which will offer highly specialised services.
Kuco Meru branch secretary Moses Baiyenia and Knun chairman Mugambi Bakari said the health workers were supporting the facility to revert to the national government.
"As Meru county health workers, we welcome the idea of having the hospital taken by the national government. This will help attract more resources and investment in the facility to enhance service delivery," said Mr Baiyenia.
Mr Bakari said, "We are in agreement with our governor. But it is a process that may take a long time."
In the past, the health unions in Meru, just like in other counties, had claimed that the devolved units had not been successful in providing healthcare services.
