Power producer Kenya Electricity Generating Company (KenGen) has partnered with the Nakuru County Government to construct a state-of-the-art Sh 330 million outpatient complex at the Naivasha Sub-County Referral Hospital will be operational within the next 18 months.
Nakuru County Executive Committee Member for Health Dr. Zachary Gichuki Kariuki said the long wait was finally over following the completion of tendering process and handing over of the site to a contractor a week ago.
The project is a joint-partnership between the County and National governments and KenGen Plc.
KenGen, the main financiers, oversaw the tendering process and identified a contractor while the county has provided land,” he said.
Dr. Gichuki said the County administration is keen on decongesting the Nakuru Level 5 Teaching and Referral Hospital by modernising all Sub-county hospitals.
“Together with Kengen we are working to ensure that the outpatient unit will have modern medical facilities so as to ensure patients from Gilgil, Naivasha and its environs get quality and affordable health care services”.
The CEC also said that the county will hire and deploy more medical doctors, clinical officers, nurses, radiologists and other medical staff to the new facility as this will ensure members of the public do not have to travel far for specialised services.
In December 2018, President Uhuru Kenyatta directed the management of KenGen to set aside Sh300m for modernising the Naivasha Sub county Hospital as part of its corporate social responsibility.
The head of state noted that this was the only public hospital serving families working at KenGen and Naivasha town and thus the need to equip and expand it.
“Naivasha sub county hospital currently serves hundreds of patients from the neighbouring counties of Nyandarua, Kiambu and Narok and this project will come in handy,” Dr. Gichuki said.
The CEC said the facility would be equipped with a new trauma centre which
will deal with the high number of accidents along the Nairobi-Nakuru highway
and the Naivasha-Mai Mahiu road.
Once complete the outpatient complex will have a pharmacy, x-ray facilities and
modern laboratories and is expected to ease congestions in other health
facilities.
“We are experiencing an increased influx of referrals from other hospitals and
health centres within the larger Rift Valley. Our strategy is not only to cope
with the numbers but mainly to offer quality and affordable disease diagnostic,
management and treatment services.
“The laboratories, pharmacy and X-ray facilities within the stand-alone facility will be purely for the out-patients and it will ensure faster and more efficient process of laboratory tests, X-ray services and dispensing of drugs. Currently, both the in-patients and the out-patients have been competing for the same facilities he said,” stated Dr. Gichuki
According to Governor Lee Kinyanjui the investment is part of his administration’s efforts to revamp the county’s health sector and improve efficiency in emergency response.
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