Kenya scores medical first in region

Photo/FREDRICK ONYANGO/NATION

President Mwai Kibaki (left) and His Highness The Aga Khan after opening a new heart and cancer centre at Nairobi's Aga Khan Hospital on July 25, 2011.

What you need to know:

  • President Kibaki 50 Kenyans die daily as a result of cancer related complications.
  • 82,000 Kenyans are diagnosed annually with the disease.
  • Heart pathologies and cancer are becoming increasingly common but dedicated medical facilities have been scarce.
  • The Aga Khan Heart and Cancer Centre cost US$50.4m for which the Aga Khan University Hospital received a US$35.3m loan from AFD.
  • With the programme, 30,000 should be treated in the coming 20 years.

Kenya has consolidated its position as a regional medical hub with the opening of a Sh4.5 billion ($50 million) heart and cancer centre in Nairobi on Monday.

The centre at the Aga Khan University Hospital is equipped with the latest screening and treatment technologies. It will also be the first in the region to do research on heart and cancer diseases that is Africa specific.

“The centre will offer specialised fellowship training in heart and cancer diseases — training that is not available in the East African region today.

“We are going to recruit outstanding faculty from around the world, including East Africans who have been studying and practising abroad,” said the university’s chancellor, The Aga Khan.

Go a long way

President Kibaki, who officially opened the centre, said it would go a long way in alleviating the rising incidence of non-communicable diseases in Kenya and sub-Saharan Africa.

“There is no doubt that cardiovascular diseases and cancers are increasingly becoming a big health challenge.

“About 50 Kenyans die daily from various forms of cancers while about 80,000 cases are diagnosed each year,” said the President.

Several sections of the new centre are headed by Kenyans and East Africans who have had advanced training and work experience abroad.

The hospital’s chief executive, Ms Asmita Gillani, said a deliberate effort was made to seek out people from the diaspora to join the centre in a brain gain strategy.

The facility, a five-storey building built with the assistance of the French government, has also moved to digital X-ray filming which allows medical specialists within the Aga Khan network to make online diagnoses.

These technologies, said The Aga Khan, are expensive. “That is why the Aga Khan University Hospital, through its Patient Welfare Programme, provides an average subsidy of 50 per cent to patients who are unable to afford the care,” he said.

Because of non-communicable diseases which the World Health Organisation says will be a future epidemic, especially in poor countries, The Aga Khan said there is need for the region to be imaginative in health financing.

“In the long run we will need an imaginative combination of cost redistribution, endowment funding, credit and insurance offerings and other innovative financial products,” he said.

President Kibaki said although the government had increased its spending on health from Sh15 billion eight years ago to about Sh60 billion, the potential benefits had been eroded by the high population growth rate.

He said the government will establish cancer centres outside Nairobi and modernise facilities at Kenyatta National Hospital.