Vision

A healthy and productive county

Mission

To provide quality, accessible, and affordable health care services that are innovative and culturally acceptable to the people of Garissa County.

Garissa County has a total of 126 health facilities. Out of these, 68 are level two facilities, seven are level four, 21 are private clinics, 19 are level three facilities and one is a level five facility based in Garissa Town.

There are also three Non-Governmental Organization dispensaries and five mission health facilities which are included in the above figure. Good health care services are mostly in the urban areas. The average distance to the nearest health facility is 35Km. The sector will endeavour to provide qualitative, curative and preventive health care services.

The sector will enhance access to maternal health care, enhance reproductive health and promote family planning with the aim of improving access to quality health care by the community. Focus will be on reduction of infant mortality rate and maternal mortality through upgrading of local health facilities to offer maternity services that will help the rural communities’ access pre and post-natal services.

To counter spread of HIV/ AIDS through new infections, more efforts will be put on prevention and reduction of prevalence among all age groups. Treatment and care of the infected and affected persons will also be emphasized during the plan period. The county will target the youth in its programs for HIV and AIDS prevention, because they are most vulnerable. The sector will also intensify support to Persons Living with HIV and AIDS (PLWHAs). To address the issue of youth and gender, the county will establish programmes that will promote involvement of vulnerable groups such as youth and women in socio-economic development. The county will also involve women and the youth in decision making as a way of promoting gender equity and youth development.

ICT will also be integrated for health information systems through trainings and acquisition of necessary equipment for all health facilities. Emphasis will be placed on health education, training of community health workers and partnership between the government and other service providers in provision of preventive services.

Women and children are more involved in the collection of household water. The sector will strive to provide piped water to most of the dry areas to lessen the work for this group. Efforts are being made to increase access to safe water by providing more water projects such as water pans, boreholes among others. This will reduce the long distances that women cover in search of water. Protected and rehabilitated environment will also provide fuel wood at close proximity to households reducing the time taken to fetch the commodity.