Civil society organizations want the ministry of health to slash its budget in order to cater for the recruitment of medical personnel.
The organizations under the umbrella “Civil Society Coalition on Maternal Health,” have petitioned the parliamentary committee on social services over the ministry budget.
The coalition want the ministry of health to reduce spending on non essential areas in order to save money to recruit more nurses and midwives and increase on their salaries.
The non essential areas that they want scrapped from the budget includes travel, where the ministry has proposed 16 billion shillings. The others are welfare and entertainment at one billion, seminars and workshops at 3.2 billion and advertising at five hundred million shillings.
Leonard Okello, a member of the coalition says more than 48 billion shillings will be saved if non essential areas are slashed from the budget. He criticized the ministry for prioritizing the construction of a gym and a canteen for staff at the expense of recruiting essential medical staff to man hospitals.
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The petition was handed to parliament on Wednesday afternoon.
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