A county assembly committee report says most hospitals in Nairobi are poorly managed, understaffed and perennially lack essential drugs.

The report by the County Assembly Sectorial Committee on Health Services says the hospitals cannot adequately serve city residents if the issue is not addressed by City Hall.

Members of the Manoah Mboku-led committee visited Umoja 1 and Jericho health centres in their fact-finding mission on the state of health services in the county.

The committee reported lack of drugs in the health centres with patients resorting to buy medicine from private hospitals.

The committee has recommended that the county health department tackles the issue of lack drugs in city hospitals urgently as very few people can afford medicines.

Drugs in public hospitals provided are provided by Kenya Medical Supplies Agency (Kemsa).

From the report, the last time Kemsa supplied drugs to the two health centres was in August 2014.

"The issue of drug supplies to the facilities must be resolved immediately and future supplies to all other county health facilities be processed and delivered on time," said Mr Mboku when he presented the report before the assembly.

At the same time, the committee chairman said they were shocked at the scarcity of staff at the two hospitals. He said the health centres have no medical doctor.

At Jericho Health Centre which serves up to 400 patients daily, there are only five clinical officers.

Umoja 1 Health Centre has only two clinical officers although it receives between 150 and 200 patients per day.

Mr Mboku asked the county government to employ more health workers to improve service delivery.

The MCA told the assembly that there were high chances of infection in the hospitals as patients with infectious diseases such as tuberculosis were not separated from other people seeking treatment.