First Lady Margaret Kenyatta’s Beyond Zero Initiative on Thursday kicked off the process of selecting nurses who will receive health awards at the Beyond Zero Summit by engaging stakeholders at a consultative meeting.

The meeting held in Naivasha drew participants from all the 47 counties, Office of the First Lady, Beyond Zero, Ministry of Health, Nursing Council of Kenya, National Aids Control Council (NACC) and Council of Governors to discuss the online application, vetting and nomination of the nurses.

The nurses will receive awards in the categories of individual nurse practitioners in level 2 dispensaries and level 3 health centres as well as team awards in nurse led-initiatives in any of the level 2 to level 5 Government-run health facilities from each of the 47 counties.

Beyond Zero Technical Advisor Ms Jane Kiragu said the nurses will be awarded in recognition of their frontline role in the provision of primary healthcare at the Beyond Zero Summit that will be held in September.

Ms Kiragu spoke in Naivasha during the consultative meeting to kick off the call for nurses to register which will happen on July 5.

“Through the Beyond Zero, one of the interventions that has been of concern is how primary healthcare is delivered. The question of access and the question of quality are key.

“There are those who are on the frontline who continue to selflessly offer services at the community level. As you are aware, we will be recognizing and appreciating efforts of nurses at the Beyond Zero Summit,” Ms Kiragu said.

She urged the participants who included NACC Regional HIV Coordinators, officers from county directorates of health and county nursing officers from the 47 counties to be Beyond Zero’s ambassadors at their counties to ensure a vibrant and robust selection process of the nurses to be awarded.

The meeting was facilitated by the Beyond Zero Secretariat under Coordinator Ms Angella Langat, Office of the First Lady’s Director of Administration Ms Eva Maina and Communication Director Ms Vivianne Ngugi as well as a team of experts in quality improvement and Information and Communication Technology.

In her presentation, Ms Langat said the awarding of nurses builds on Beyond Zero's intervention that was rolled out in 2016 in conjunction with the Kenya Medical Training College (KMTC) and the World Bank to scale up its primary healthcare advocacy support through offering scholarships to enrolled community health nurses in arid and semi-arid lands.

“The achievement of Universal Health Coverage depends on amongst other things, a skilled health workforce particularly the nursing workforce to ensure patients have easy access to preventive, diagnostic and curative services,” Ms Langat said.

She emphasized that this year’s summit will focus on primary healthcare as the cornerstone of UHC and the first point of contact for most patients.