Thika Level 5 On Its Way Towards Being A Teaching And Referral Hospital.

Medical Superintendent Dr. Andrew Jacob (right) Toro taking Governor William Kabogo (left) and Kiambu Health CEC Dr. Jonah Mwangi round Thika Level 5 Hospital.

Medical Superintendent Dr. Andrew Jacob Toro has revealed plans to upgrade the Thika Level 5 Hospital to a referral status and transform it into a teaching and referral hospital. Dr. Toro said that they had already tabled a bill to this effect which if assented, will pave way for the new status.

“Our vision is to be a world class teaching and referral hospital. We have already done a health bill which is before the county assembly and we hope that it will go through so that we can be able to achieve our new status,” said Dr. Toro during the 75^th cerebrations fete at the hospital.

Dr. Toro pointed out that the hospital had a robust training, research and innovation committee that met regularly in a view to strategise on research and innovation and ensure that the staff made systematic investigations in order to establish facts and reach new conclusions.

Kiambu Chief Officer (CO) of Health Dr. Stephen Njuguna Waiguru supported this dream and said that the Health Department would fully facilitate the hospital to achieve all they had in their master strategic plan.

“What I want to say to Thika Level 5 is ‘The sky is the limit’. With your new renal facility, the ICU, the MRIs,.. Thika Level 5 can become a teaching and referral hospital training specialisation for nurses, pharmtechs, laboratory technologist and so on.  It is time you began running like a parastatal within Kiambu County. As the chief officer (of health), the CEC and the governor, ours is just to guide the dream and actualise it. What everyone wants is to ensure that this hospital performs immensely,” Said Njuguna.

He advised the management of the hospital to seize opportunities around by optimising their services to attract those people who preferred visiting Nairobi and MP Shah Hospitals towards Thika level 5.

Thika Level 5 is an inter-county referral hospital that was established on 10^th October 1941 as a cottage hospital to cater for the health needs of the then native Africans and Asians. The facility has continued to grow in leaps and bounds, culminating being gazetted as a Level 5 on the 30^th November 2007.

Currently, its approximate catchment area is around 5 million people spreading over Kiambu, Nairobi, Murang’a, Machakos, Garissa and Kirinyaga counties. This hospital, which has a 265-bed capacity, is ran by a human resource team of 550 members.

Last year, they were able to attend to about 200,000 outpatients with another 23,000 hosted in the wards, translating to an average of 1,900 patients monthly. That notwithstanding, their maternity wing handled an average of 850 mothers monthly 500 of which were normal deliveries with about 200 going through cesarean section (C-S).

The hospital offers an alley of services that include inpatient and outpatient services, specialised clinics, health promotion services, rehabilitative services, imaging services among others.

They have started offering MRI services, boast of a 6-bed state-of-the-art ICU together with a 3-bed HDU, have established a 5-bed state-of-the-art renal unit to take care of kidney patients and now have a blood transfusion centre, the first in the Central region of Kenya.

In partnership with the Mount Kenya University (MKU), the hospital also boasts of an ultra-modern funeral home, one of the best funeral homes in East & Central Africa, with a capacity of 112. This facility houses an anatomy laboratory.

The hospital is currently putting up a 275-bed ultra-modern reproductive unit and plans to start a CT-scan soon.

Currently the hospital is in the process of automating the entire operations of the facility in a view to guarantee efficient and effective service delivery. It has a newsletter, installed Wi-Fi services and a website to ensure that they are easily accessible online. They soon plan to have a library and an e-learning centre to ensure all the students training within the facility have a conducive learning environment.

They are also putting up a doctor’s plaza so that consultant works within the hospital are made possible.

The facility has installed 24 CCTV cameras as a pre-cautional measure and to monitor all that transpires in various points within the facility.

In its pursuit of achieving universal health coverage within the county, Thika Level 5 Hospital has hosted two fully fledged NHIF offices for easier facilitation of recruitment of new members and billing. They also have a resident chaplain who conducts one-hour prayers sessions every Thursday of the week and offer emotional support to anyone during their stay in the facility.