Counties

New Mathare hospital set to open doors July

badi

NMS director General Badi. FILE PHOTO | NMG

The Sh400 newly-refurbished Mathare-Korogocho Hospital will begin admitting patients in July, Nairobi Metropolitan Services (NMS) Director General Mohamed Badi has said.

Mr Badi said work at the health facility is 90 percent complete and they are only awaiting medical equipment from the Ministry of Health before the hospital is commissioned.

The NMS boss said the five-storey building hospital is expected to reduce the patient load at Mama Lucy Hospital which serves more than 2.1 million Eastlands area.

Once complete, the Level 5 hospital will have patient admission wards, a pharmacy, kidney dialysis centre, intensive care unit and theatres.

The facility will be at the same level as Mama Lucy Hospital which is also being upgraded by NMS to a Level 5 hospital.

“We are sure that when we get some of the medical equipment which we had been promised by the CS Health, we will be able to operationalise the hospital beginning July,” said Mr Badi.

NMS this year recruited 1,691 health staff for deployment across the 24 new hospitals being put up in informal settlements in Nairobi as well as Mathare-Korogocho and Mama Lucy Hospitals.

The recruits comprise 679 nurses while the rest are doctors and clinical officers and will be deployed to the new hospitals with bed capacity of 1,580.

Maj-Gen Badi said the Mathare-Korogocho hospital will offer renal dialysis, radiology services, tuberculosis management, mortuary and autopsy services, 24-hour pharmacy, pathology, chemotherapy and forensic services.

The facility was put up in the early 1990s but was grounded, however, NMS was last year charged with reviving its completion.

The 350-bed capacity hospital will also have inpatient and outpatient pharmacies, burns unit and a staff quarters.

Level 5 health facilities are also known as county referral hospitals and should have more than 100 beds. They are run by chief executive officers who must be medical doctors.

Such facilities handle more than 250 patients daily and have capacity to manage medical, paediatric, surgical and gynaecological in-patients.

Besides a medical superintendent, Level 5 hospitals should have at least 15 medical officers, seven anaesthesiologists, two cardiologists, four general surgeons and two orthopaedic surgeons. Another requirement is that it should employ at least 90 clinical officers, 118 nurses with specialists spread across different departments, 11 pharmacists and 10 pharmaceutical technologists.

Quality and accessible healthcare has become a luxury taht is beyond the reach of those who live in slums.