Before you vote: The truth about equipment for Kiambu hospitals

President Uhuru Kenyatta and Deputy President William Ruto inspect equipment while on an inspection tour of Ol-Kalau Level Five Hospital, Nyandarua County on April 14, 2016

Did the government spend over Sh800 million to equip hospitals in Kiambu?


“…The updates we did at Thika hospital, and the other in Kiambu, the equipment we have put, over Sh800 million that the Jubilee government has vested in hospitals is in order to ease access to quality health services...”
- President Kenyatta at a Rally in Thika  on June 18, 2017

In September 2016, a six-bed capacity intensive care unit (ICU) was opened at Thika Level Five hospital. The unit is supported by a six bed capacity high dependency unit (HDU).

The equipment was supplied by the national government through the Sh38 billion Managed Equipment Services (MES) Programme, which equips Level 4 and 5 hospitals with specialised medical equipment including theatre, laboratory, renal, ICU and radiology equipment.

Initially, governors resisted the project on the basis that they had not been fully involved in the planning and the procurement of the machine but they eventually accepted the project and signed agreements with the national government.

During the signing of contracts for the project in February 2015, then  Health Secretary James Macharia said equipping 11 hospitals with six ICU and three HDU beds, each with monitoring, resuscitation and support equipment for critically injured or very sick patients requiring close monitoring, would cost Sh3.3 billion.

THEATRE EQUIPMENT

Thika Hospital was one of the eleven. So going by the figures, and given that the same equipment was to be supplied to every hospital, then the ICU and HDU equipment supplied to Thika Level Five hospital cost about Sh300 million.

The hospital was also supplied with theatre equipment, estimated by the Ministry of Health to cost Sh128 million, renal equipment (Sh9 million) and imaging and radiology equipment (Sh232 million), all of which comes to around Sh669 million.

Kiambu Level Four hospital received theatre equipment (Sh128 million) and imaging and radiology equipment (Sh232 million), which together come to Sh360 million.

The cost of equipping the two hospitals with the medical equipment was over Sh800 million, even without including sterilisation and surgical sets which both hospitals also received.

President Kenyatta’s claim about money spent in Kiambu is true