Ministry of Health
The Ministry of Health commissioned a consultant to provide financial advisory services for the Managed Equipment Services( MES) to be carried out in all counties in Kenya.
Q3. So far how has the leasing of new medical equipment improved provision of health services in public hospitals?
The MES Project will ensure that every county has at least a Level 5 and Level 4 Hospital. A total of 75 hospitals spread across the country are already fully equipped out of the 98 hospitals that will benefit from this project. MES project has greatly improved delivery of health care in this country.
The equipped hospitals are now able to handle both basic as well as specialized surgeries in more than 87 public hospitals thereby reducing the need for referrals. The establishment of life saving dialysis services in counties to cater for more than 10,000 Kenyans with kidney failure is a major achievement towards improving the quality of lives of Kenyans in need of dialysis services. These patients are now accessing the service from their county referral hospitals. Today, 39 renal centres have been completed and we are training required personnel to ensure that they are all operational by the end of the year.
Communicable diseases, rise in non-communicable diseases and injuries has led to increased demand for critical care services. Through the MES Project there will be additional 66 Intensive Care Beds( ICU) and 33 High Dependency Beds
( HDU) to ensure that we have centres that provide services and personnel that ensure optimal care to the critically ill patients. Already, 6 ICU centres with a combined bed capacity of 54 beds have been completed and 4 are providing these vital services.
The latest digital mammography units screening have already been installed in 50 hospitals, thereby enabling the hospitals to carry out these critical exams at county level. This, together with the installation of state of the art digital x-ray, ultrasound and other imaging equipment will optimize the use of digital technology to allow for faster diagnosis and scan analysis using interconnected expertise in 98 hospitals. This implies that for instance, one radiologist can assist with interpreting images in different stations across the country in the absence of such specialists.
The MES Project uptake has been tremendous in areas where the equipment has been installed.
Q4. Since you launched this initiative are there any challenges or bottlenecks you have encountered and if so gives us examples and the solutions you have applied.
The project was scheduled to be fully completed by June 2016. While the implementation of the project is 92 % complete, a few challenges affected the pace of implementation.
Health CS, Dr. Cleopa Mailu consoling a patients at Voi Referral Hospital during a tour of the facility on October 25th, 2016.
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