“… I am here to inform the meeting that we shall provide more land for the facility to see that some of these challanges are no more experienced by our people…” said Mr. Ayume Alex one of the Land Lords during engagement meeting.
On February, 2017, Partners in Community Transformation (PICOT) conducted an engagement meeting between the local community and duty bearers on issues of health. This meeting was based on issues that the project team captured from the community through a community voicing, where their assessment of the quality of services was carried out. Among key issues raised include, punctuality of staff, inadequate land for further development, insufficient staff accommodation, inadequate staffing, to mention but a few.
Mrs. Akulia Zainabu a resident of Kolubulu village Dranya raised her dissatisfaction on the staff accommodation challange; “… there are only two sleeping rooms for the staff, and three of them are pilling in these rooms yet these are married people. Is this really fair?”, Zainabu asked duty bearers.
In addition, the community noted the following challenges as result of the limited land and shortage of staff houses: most staff come late to work since they stay miles away, lack of kitchen and staff pilling. Mr. Adriko the LCIII chairman in response, affirmed the land issues as he said “… Dranya HCIII has very small land which limits room for further developement. He added that, based on the reports he got from his predecessor, the facility lost many opportunities for staff houses and even Kitchen because of lack of land to put them”.
Mr. Uyume Alex one of the landlords of Dranya HCIII got triggered during the meeting and declared that, “I and my elder brother had resolved to support the facility with more land since the time of Mr. Asiku Elli (former LCIII Chairman), but to our dismay there wasn’t any follow-up done on that. And he added “…I am here to inform the meeting that we shall provide more land for the facility to see that some of these challenges are no more experienced by our people…“.
On 24th May, 2017, LCIII chairman Mr. Adriko Albert went on ground with his Executive Members to Mr. Anyume and his elder brother Mr. Aloro (Landlords) to follow-up the pledge made by the family. Land measurements/ demarcations were made. Mr. Aloro the principal owner of the land had this to say “I am giving this land free of charge to the facility not because I have plenty of it, or just to get benefit for my family, but because I want health services to be close to the people of Dranya”. He added that before the facility was brought to Dranya, they used to suffer and move miles to access medical services even during critical movements like at night. He said that they had learnt that staff are piling and moving long distances in to people and they thought it necessary to extend the land to ensure that more staff houses are built such that all staff are accommodated at the facility to improve the quality of services offered.
In conclusion, the Chairman LCIII- Mr. Adriko expressed his gratitude to PICOT and its donors for the project that created a platform that enabled the sub-county to access more land for the health center.