AN ASSESSMENT OF FACTORS INFLUENCING THE MANAGEMENT OF COVID-19 PANDEMIC AMONG COUNTY GOVERNMENTS IN KENYA

The global pandemic of Covid-19 created dramatic challenges for governments worldwide. It led to skyrocketing numbers of deaths and outbreaks, challenged the public and private health systems of many countries and brought many national economies to a halt. Kenya was not an exception and like other countries used a number of strategies to combat the epidemic but equally suffered the same fate. There is little empirical evidence to determine whether the strategies, especially by the county governments were effective in handling the Covid-19 pandemic. Thereby lies the knowledge gap that this study seeks to answer. It is against this background that this study sought to assess the extent to which medical equipment and supplies, personnel and funding influenced the management of the Covid-19 pandemic by county governments in Kenya. The general objective guiding the study was, to assess the factors influencing the management of the Covid-19 pandemic among county governments in Kenya. The specific objectives of the study were: To determine the extent to which medical equipment and supplies influenced the management of the Covid-19 pandemic in the county governments, to determine the extent to which the use of personnel resources influenced the management of the Covid-19 pandemic in the county governments and to determine the extent to which funding influenced the management of Covid-19 pandemic in the county governments. Fink's crisis management model guided the study, which reviewed the empirical literature on medical equipment and supplies, personnel resources and funding in the management of the Covid-19 pandemic. This study adopted a descriptive survey research design with a target population of 70,500 employees from the health sector. The research used simple random sampling as a sampling technique and a sample size of 100 respondents was selected using the Yamane formula. Data was collected using questionnaires. The data were subjected to descriptive statistics and analyzed using SPSS. Based on the findings, 79.6% of the respondents agreed that medical equipment and supplies greatly influenced the management of the Covid-19 pandemic in the county governments, 85% of the respondents indicated that personnel resources played a critical role in the management of Covid-19 pandemic among the counties and 74.2% of the respondents agreed that funding greatly influenced management of Covid-19 pandemic in county governments. Based on the findings, the study recommended that a staff audit and workload analysis should be undertaken and a recruitment process initiated to improve staffing levels; an audit of bed capacity of all medical facilities be initiated and a procurement plan for the acquisition of additional beds based on needs undertaken; an audit and analysis of staff training be undertaken to identify training gaps and necessary action initiated; negotiate with SRC on additional medical staff allowances and lastly fast-track legislation on the expenditure of emergency funds. JEL: H10; H51; H76; I10; I18  Article visualizations