All new 24 hospitals being put up by the Nairobi Metropolitan Services (NMS) in Nairobi will offer 24-hour services in a bid to enhance access to health services for city residents.
This follows a directive by President Uhuru Kenyatta while commissioning five new health centres in the capital on Tuesday night.
The President said this move will ensure city residents access health services whenever they need them as well as decongest the Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH) and Mama Lucy Hospital in the process.
“Instead of someone using money to go and seek medical services at Kenyatta National Hospital, they need to access these services at the facilities which are near them,” said Mr Kenyatta.
The Head of State said he had observed during his inspection tour that most facilities operated only during the day denying residents much needed healthcare at night.
“We discovered that Nairobi hospitals open at 8am and were closing at 6pm meaning that if somebody got sick or was in need of medical attention after 6pm the only medical facility they could access was Kenyatta National Hospital,” he said.
To address this, Mr Kenyatta directed public hospitals being built to operate on a 24-hour basis.
He announced that 19 out of the 24 new hospitals were already complete with plans underway to adequately resource for 24-hour operations.
In the night tour, the President unveiled two Level 2 hospitals at Gichagi in Kangemi and Gatina in Kawangware as well as Level 3 hospitals in Mukuru Kwa Rueben, Tassia Kwa Ndege and Our Lady of Nazareth in Mukuru Kwa Njenga.
The new health facilities are part of the wider plan to decongest KNH, Mama Lucy, Pumwani and Mbagathi hospitals.
This now brings to nine hospitals which have been commissioned, the others being Uthiru-Muthua Hospital, Kiamaiko, Kayole-Soweto and Ushirika in Dandora.
Last month, NMS Director-General Mohamed Badi, who accompanied the President in the four-hour night inspection tour, said they would unveil 12 hospitals with seven others at various stages of completion.
President Kenyatta said he commissioned the health facilities at night so as to adhere to Covid-19 containment protocols.
“As you have seen for yourselves, it would have been impossible to go and do what we did today, during the day because of the number of people who would have been out there. It would have been very difficult for us to do the job we wanted to do and at the same time observe Covid protocols that the government has put in place,” he said.
Uhuru opens five hospitals in Nairobi at night
Road projects
President Kenyatta said the night tour was also aimed at inspecting the ongoing road construction projects within the informal settlements.
“The other thing we wanted to see was the roads. We embarked on a programme where we are doing 400km of roads in our inner cities. We have been able to travel in those informal settlements without challenges. These are roads we have been constructing over the past one year and we are now constructing 450km and we want to increase the same with another 300km in this financial year,” he said.
On the provision of water, Mr Kenyatta said NMS had drilled hundreds of boreholes across the city which are providing free clean water to residents as the Government works on a long-term solution.
“Today even in our informal settlements there is no more issue of people having to pay for water. People used to pay 20 shillings for a jerrican of water but now we have build boreholes for them.
“What we are trying to do in this coming year is to make sure that instead of going to one watering point we are also expanding water connections to ensure that people have access to clean water, sewage services, health, good roads and electricity” he said.
President Kenyatta regretted that despite generating over 50 percent of the country's GDP, Nairobi residents still struggle to access basic public services. He noted that the final phase of the city's transformational plan is the issuance of title deeds to residents who own land so as to empower them to own decent housing.
- Addtitional reporting by PSCU.
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