Nakuru Governor Lee says major overhaul of health services underway

The Nakuru Level Five Hospital is set to get a major refurbishment with the aim of improving service delivery, Governor Lee Kinyanjui has said.

Speaking during the commissioning of a Sh4 million dialysis machine donated by the Safaricom Foundation, Mr Kinyanjui said the new changes will make the hospital fit to offer training to medical students.

Currently, the hospital is facing a shortage of medical staff in key departments.

According to Governor Kinyanjui, plans are underway to change the face of the hospital and streamline service delivery.

“We want to ensure that the facility accommodates more patients, work is made easier for staff as the facility is converted from a general hospital to a teaching and referral facility,” said Mr Kinyanjui.

ONCOLOGICAL SERVICES

The governor noted that oncological services will be available at the hospital in a period of one month.

“Our aim is to reduce movement by the cancer patients to far away hospitals,” said the governor.

Mr Kinyanjui said the county government will be partnering with the National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) to achieve a 70 percent registration of members in the county by June.

He noted that as a way of ensuring this is achieved, more than 200 nurses have been hired to boost services in all hospitals in the county and are now being deployed.

STAFF SHORTAGE

“When the health workers are overworked, the quality of services is compromised and we want to ensure that shortage of staff will not hinder delivery,” he said.

Safaricom Regional Head of Department Sales and Operations James Maitai said the decision to donate the dialysis machine was necessitaed by the need for the service considering that the hospital serves patients from a vast region.

The hospital’s Medical Superintendent Joseph Mburu said the renal unit has 16 functional dialysis machine which are still not enough to cater for the patients currently seeking the services.

“We currently have more than 100 patients under the programme, some as young as five and an increase in number of the machines will reduce the waiting time,” said Dr Mburu.

The unit attends to between 25 and 30 patients every day who are served during the day.

Due to the shortage of medical staff at the hospital, the unit cannot run on a 24-hour basis.