Ministry of Health
Health PS, Dr. Nicholas Muraguri inspecting MES projects at King Fahad Hospital in Lamu County on October 10th, 2016
Under an MES arrangement, the MES Provider supplies, installs, trains users, manages and maintains a portfolio of medical equipment on a long-term basis. The MES Provider will own the equipment and provide it to the identified hospitals as part of a managed service encompassing all the necessary elements to support effective use of the equipment.
The MES provider shall assume the risk and responsibility of procuring, installing, maintaining and replacing the equipment in the hospitals for the next 7 years.
On the other hand, equipping 20 hospitals with MRI equipment is a collaboration between the Government of Peoples Republic of China and Government of Kenya. The Government of the People’ s Republic of China is financing the project through a loan facility. The MRI project is not therefore under MES.
However, these two projects are being implemented by the Ministry of Health with the aim of improving healthcare of Kenyans. The goal of the MRI project is to improve diagnostic capacity in public hospitals through supply and installation of MRI equipment.
Q2. Compared to buying new medical equipment what are the advantages of leasing as opposed to buying?
The value for money assessment carried out clearly showed that the MES tender prices were lower than the market price of the equipment. The Government will be able to make substantial savings by using the MES model compared to outright purchase of the equipment. More importantly, Kenyans will be able to access medical services immediately, which could otherwise have taken 7 years to purchase the equipment for all counties.
Citizens shall therefore enjoy equity in accessing uninterrupted, quality, specialized healthcare services regardless of location within Kenya.
In addition, costs for regular service, maintenance, repairs, upgrade and replacement of spare parts for all equipment throughout the programme are borne by the MES provider. This will improved services in the hospitals due to reduced equipment faults and malfunctions.
40 November-December 2016