There is nothing more humiliating than being in your home or house without water;  whether it is in the rural or urban areas is a nightmare. And this is more disturbing when a public institution that caters for the sick and vulnearable people goes without this precious commodity for weeks.

This was well epitomised by the scenes at Rift Valley Provincial Hospital in Nakuru. Images of women with their children looking helplessly because they were unable to  get medical attention at the hospital due to lack of water  and it goes against all the promises around achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in Kenya.

Even though the problem has been rectified, the fact that an entire Provincial Hospital can be paralysed because of lack of water is a strong indication that our country does not take seriously the issue of sanitation and hygiene.

Ordinarily, sanitation issue is not as a hot topic as politics that  normally grasp the attention  of the public everyday. It does not compel ordinary people to march in  the street to demand for it like good governance. Yet most of health problems are linked to lack of water and poor  sanitation.

What was happening at this hospital was a reflection of the huge problem facing Kenya and other African countries. 

In  Africa, the lives of a majority of women and girls has been made a misery due to lack of basic services such as water and sanitation. It is estimated that African women spend 40 billion of hours a year in search of water. 

But African governments have not taken pragmatic steps to liberate women from this burden and ensure the many hours women spend in search of water are directed towards improved economic development. 

This failure is happening at time when numerious reports by UNICEF have indicated that lack of safe water and sanitation remains one of the world’s most urgent health issue. 

Water and Sanitation Hygiene (WASH) an organisation which has been pushing for the world leaders to recognise the importance of sanitation in tackling their national health problems, says that within Africa only 36 percent of people have access to a basic toilet. Majority of the deaths among women and children are due to lack of safe water. 

Back at home, the reports on the number of children who have died as a result of the cholera outbreak in  Rift Valley and Nyanza is a clear indication that unsafe water, inadequate sanitation and poor hygiene that are rallied by these organisations, are yet to receive the serious attention they deserve. 

Diarrhoea has been ranked by WHO reports as  the third-biggest child killer in Africa after pneumonia and Malaria. This emphasises the effect of sanitation on the socio-economic development of African countries. 

There has been concern all over Africa that much focus and resources is being put on other areas at the expense of  water and sanitation, which has been pushed to the periphery.  This is despite the fact that the achievement of the MDGs hinges so heavilly on  how a country is able to prioritise access to clean and adequate water as well as deal with its sanitation problems. 

But this can only happen when sanitation gets a budget line and the policies guiding this sector are implemented to the letter. 

One thing which President Kibaki will go down in history as having changed the lives of Kenya among  other things is when he was the Minister of Health. His name was synonymous to Primary health care. It was a song that was sung in every village and any public gathering. Its impact is still being felt up to this moment. May , it is time again that Primary health care takes the centre stage.

The writer is the Executive Director of AWC Features

This article was also published in the Saturday Standard on 5th July 2008

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