Thika Level 5 Hospital Celebrating A Revolution, 75 Years Down The Line.
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| Health officers attending their first patient in the newly opened ICU Unit at Thika Level 5 Hospital. |
Thika Level 5 Hospital celebrates its 75th
Birthday this November having registered a very enormous revolution in terms of
infrastructure and human resource. Started as a native health facility for the indigenous
black people in the year 1941, the hospital has registered a tremendous growth
especially in the last 4 years of devolved system of government.
From just a simple health centre with basically essential
services, it has grown to one of the leading public health institutions in the
country, serving about 60-70% referral cases from the neighbouring Gatundu,
Ruiru and Juja Sub-counties, Murang’a, Machakos and Nairobi Counties and the
Northern Frontier County of Garissa.
To mark these success, the hospital has scheduled a series
of mini activities such as medical clinics geared towards illustrating the
strides made over that period of time.
Among the successes include a new state-of-the-art 6-bed ICU
ward that is supported by a 3-bed HDU ward and an isolation room that
successfully handled it first client yesterday (Monday).
“We are very happy that for the first time in 75 years, we
have operationalised ICU services at a cost of sh. 95 million annually for the
next 7 years. You all appreciate that a hospital is never complete unless it
can take care of critically ill patients who need emergency and specialised intensive
treatment. We are happy to appreciate the contribution of both the national and
county governments who have made this dream a reality,” said Dr. Andrew J.
Toro, the Medical Superintendent, Thika Level 5 Hospital.
He added that the development of this facility was a big
boost in the health services of the people of this region as they were
previously forced to seek the same services at Kenyatta National Hospital
(KNH).
He said that they were in the process of starting citiscan services
that complement ICU services.
The ICU Unit is will be served by their oxygenation plant
that is capable of generating its own oxygen to guarantee enough supply of the
gas to provide both cardiac and respiratory support to persons whose heart and lungs
are unable to provide an adequate amount of gas exchange to sustain life. The plant
is capable of producing more gas that they require at any given time thus they
plan to be selling the excess gas to institutions that will need it.
They also have a mammography theatre that performs mammograms
in women as we all know that successful treatment of breast cancer depends on
early diagnosis.
With the support of the County Government of Kiambu, the extension
of the hospital’s lab and dental departments are in the final stages and the
will soon open their doors to the public.
“This departments will go a long way in addressing the
challenges that we have been experiencing in these two departments. Remember,
the dental services have not been receiving the emphasis that they ought to,”
he said.
The hospital is also in the process of completing a sh. 700
million state-of-the-art reproductive health unit with a 270-bed capacity,
complete with all the necessary departments such as clinics, in-patient services,
labour wards, theatres, ICUs, lecture theatres, amenities for patients who like
private services, offices and a doctors’ parlour.
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| Construction Works going on on the sh. 700m reproductive health unit at Thika Level 5 Hospital. |
“The facility is at 52% completion and God willing, we will
have it up and running by early next year.”
Thika Level 5 has also had a general facelift of its old
buildings where they did some repainting, re-carpeting the corridors and
walkways, bought state-of-the-art beds in the wards, has an endoscopy machine
and renovated their minimal invasive theatre that will cater for a paroscopy, endoscopy
and urology for out-patients cases.
Their maternity wing, despite of all its challenges, is able
to deliver an average of 700 babies monthly with a life birth maternal rate of
between 60 and 100%.
“We also plan to have a blood transfusion centre, the only
one in the county. We are currently able to mobilise about 700-800 units of
blood per month. The essence of the availability of blood is to reduce maternal
mortality and mobility as we all know that the biggest killer of expectant mothers
is the lack of blood especially during emergencies,” said Dr. Toro.
Elizabeth Njeri Kibucha, the officer In-charge of the Renal
Department, said that their new unit serves 10 kidney patients daily. She appreciates
the fact that since its commissioning on 13th November 2015, they
have been able to do 1,208 sessions, cases that were previously handled at KNH.
She says that out of the 75 patients who have been booked
for dialysis so far, the unit has been able to handle 23 cases and were really
working extra hard to clear the backlog.
“We realise 10 patients a day with our five machines, each
patient taking about 4 hours. Each one of them are dialysed twice a week at a
cost of sh. 9,500 per session. All our NHIF compliant patients are handled free
of charge,” said Kibucha.
They have also acquired a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) machines that uses a magnetic
field and pulses of radio wave energy to make pictures of organs and structures
inside the body. It can also give different information about structures in the
body than can be seen with an X-ray, ultrasound, or computed tomography (CT)
scan. MRI scans are capable of
producing a variety of chemical and physical data, in addition to detailed
spatial images. MRI is widely used for medical diagnosis, staging of disease
and follow-up without exposing the body to ionizing radiation.
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| Dr. Toro taking through Health C.E.C. Manjari Mwangi the operations of the new MRI Centre at Thika Level 5 Hospital. |
This facility is the 2nd in the county after
Kiambu Level 5 Hospital. Patients will benefit from this facility at a cost of
between sh. 8,000 and 10,000 per session.
The hospital has recently upgraded their software that now
enables them to capture all their data ‘real-time’.
“For the last one month, we have a software which is able to
capture a patient from the time of registration to the time of discharge. This software
is one of its kind because at real time, you can be able to know where a
particular patient is and what services have been given to them. This software
will go a long way in improving efficiency and effectiveness of operating the
systems in the hospital,” said Andrew Maina, The Hospital Administration
Officer.
Kiambu County Executive Member (C.E.C.) of Health, Dr. Jonah
Manjari Mwangi said the initiative by the Thika Level 5 Hospital was part of
the county government’s 2014-18 Strategic Plan aimed at improving the health
services within the county. He said that they had this year allocated sh. 4.2 Billion
for health services with sh. 2 Billion going to infrastructural development and
recurrent expenditure.
“We have continued to improve on infrastructural development,
not only in Thika Level 5 but also in all the other health facilities within
the county. It is important to note that we are building 4 theatres that are
almost complete at Karatu, Rosiget, Lari, and Wangige. We are also doing four Level
4 hospitals of a bed capacity of 200 patients in Lari, Tigoni, Wangige and
Kikuyu,” said Mwangi.
He promised that all these projects will be operational by
June next year.
Kiambu County Health Department has zoned their health
facilities to enable each one of them to handle a particular area of health
concern. Lari has been zoned as a trauma centre, Tigoni as a respiratory and
childhood illness centre, Kiambu as a neurosurgical and NCD centre, Thika as a
reproductive health services centre and other innovations that will be brought
on board, Ruiru as a renal services centre while Gatundu has been zoned as a
non-communicable diseases centre.
Other major projects that are in the pipeline include an ICU
wing in both Gatundu and Kiambu Hospitals.
Kiambu is also working to improve on its human resource
through employment of more health workers especially in the nursing and clinical
officers’ cadres. They have also earmarked a kitty for the promotion of its
health officers.
“We are now in the second phase of promoting health care
workers. In last Fiscal Year, we promoted 485 healthcare workers that are up to
Job Group K. And we are in the process of promoting all the other cadres above
Job Group K,” said the C.E.C.
He admitted that the county has had a challenge in the
procurement of stokers of their commodities but they have now resumed re-stocking
drugs from KEMSA to all their health facilities. They are also installing Med 360
machines to all their eight major hospitals and 56 Level 2 and 3 Hospitals.
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