The Kenya Red Cross has pledged to roll out more affordable, accessible and equitable community based health care.

The humanitarian organisation on Wednesday said plans are in place geared towards improving the general welfare of Kenyans through its Health and Social services department.

“Our priority is to alleviate human suffering and save lives, a duty we continue to execute through disaster risk management initiatives and effective emergency response. The year 2016 was another busy one for the Kenya Red Cross Society but we pride in the commendable work we did and look forward to doing more in 2017,” said Society Secretary General Abbas Gullet.

Among the plans up the sleeves are the scaling up of access to prevention and control of communicable diseases; prevention and management of non communicable diseases and conditions, reproductive maternal, neonatal, newborn, child and adolescent health.

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Gullet said the humanitarian organisation is set to intervene and expand on nutrition, gender and diversity, mental health and psycho-social Support.

Others are plans to expand access and help offered to those affected with drugs and substance abuse and blood donor services as well as scaling up of public health in emergencies.

“The interventions are anchored to the KRCS 2016/2020 strategy, National Health Sector strategy III, Vision 2030 (the social pillar) and Sustainable Development goals,”he said.

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In Water and Sanitation, Gullet said emphasis will be given to the access to safe, sustainable and affordable water for domestic and livelihood use.

Access to adequate and equitable sanitation, hygiene education and menstrual health education are also set to be scaled up.

He said that apart from responding to disasters, the Society is embracing a proactive approach towards disaster management.

“We are involved in multiple preventive measures in the areas of food security, environmental sustainability, health, water and sanitation in order to minimise some of the common disasters,”Gullet added.

The Society introduced Eplus medical services in 2010.

Gullet said the Eplus services will continue to offer quality emergency medical services, which include 24/7/365 rapid response ambulance services, medical helpline, paramedics and Emergency Medical Technicians trained in Pre-hospital Care by the KRCS Training School, State-of-the art Pre-hospital care equipment as well as countrywide presence and affordability.

KRCS is widely known for timely and effective emergency response that often happen among them; droughts, floods, conflicts, terrorism, fires, chemical accidents and diseases.

It has also been at the fore front in responding to epidemics that disrupt people’s livelihoods, destroying infrastructure.

KRCS is further involved in disaster risk management.