Bomet’s Longisa County Referral Hospital performs first knee replacement surgery

Leah Koech recuperates at Longisa County Referral Hospital in Bomet County on September 27, 2016 after undergoing knee replacement surgery, the first to be performed in a hospital in the South Rift region. PHOTO | GEOFFREY RONO | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • Mrs Leah Koech, 68, underwent the knee surgery which cost her only Sh3,000.
  • Mrs Koech explained that her woes started nine years ago at her Soimet home in Sotik Sub-County.
  • Dr Bernard Sowek said the patient was fitted with an artificial implant in her knee.
  • Governor Ruto said Longisa hospital had been revamped and that major operations are now being done there.

A patient who underwent the first ever knee replacement surgery in the South Rift region last Friday is recuperating well at Longisa County Referral Hospital in Bomet County.

A jovial Leah Koech, 68, expressed confidence that the excruciating pain she has been experiencing in her knee will now be a thing of the past.

“It has been a painful experience indeed. For the last nine years, I have known nothing but real pain,” she told Nation.co.ke

“But I can now breathe a sigh of relief after the major operation to rectify the problem was carried out last Friday. All I can do now is wait [to] fully heal before I can embark on my other duties,” she went on.

Mrs Koech explained that her woes started nine years ago at her Soimet home in Sotik Sub-County.

“There was this excruciating pain on my right knee. I really don’t know what caused it. Not knowing how serious it was, I sought treatment from local herbalists in vain. It only got worse,” she narrated.

SIX-HOUR OPERATION

She says she endured the pain until last week, when she was sent to Longisa Referral Hospital, where she underwent a six-hour operation to rectify the problem.

Bernard Sowek, the Bomet County chief officer in charge of medical services, said the patient was fitted with an artificial implant in her knee.

In an interview with Nation.co.ke, Dr Sowek described the procedure as a major milestone.

“This has not been done in any public health facility in the South Rift. It is a first in our region,” he went on.

Such an operation, he said, can only be done in major public hospitals such as the Nakuru Provincial General Hospital, Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital in Eldoret as well as Kenyatta National Hospital besides a host of other private hospitals.

Dr Sowek said the operation would have cost the patient between Sh400,000 and Sh600,000 in a private hospital but they only charged her only Sh3,000.

GOVERNOR WITNESSES OPERATION

The operation was witnessed by, among others, Bomet Governor Isaac Ruto and the institution’s medical superintended Dr Ronny Kibet.

Governor Ruto said Longisa hospital had been revamped and that major operations are now being done there.

He said his administration had set up an ICU at the hospital, installed dialysis equipment and built an eye unit.

Mr Ruto disclosed that the hospital at the moment had sufficient running water as opposed to the past when relatives of the sick had to fetch water from contaminated springs or nearby rivers.

The governor added that his government was disbursing Sh5 million to the hospital every month for administration purposes up from the Sh1.3 million it used to be allocated in the past.

He also said there were enough drugs in all hospitals in the county contrary to some claims by his critics.