KNH gets funding boost for burns and paediatric centre

After the Sachangwan fire, early this year, that left 110 Kenyans dead and scores of others with severe burns, the country’s ability to handle specialised care was put to the test.

The World Health Organisation called the situation grave.

“Even though the health care delivery system currently is coping marginally, it requires immediate and continuous assistance. Management of burnt cases requires intensive care, timely availability of drugs, infusions and other consumables, and frequent changing of beddings and linen,” said the WHO report.

But there is something to smile about in the current budget. Finance minister Uhuru Kenyatta allocated Sh500 million to Kenyatta National Hospital, the country’s largest referral facility, geared towards construction.

KNH CEO Dr Jotham Michemi said part of the allocation, Sh400 million, would be steered towards the construction of a national burns centres.

The centre, an initiative that will involve both the government and donor funding, will have a capacity of 50 beds.

“We had asked for Sh1.1 billion for the construction of the burns centre as well as a highly specialised paediatric emergency centre,” he said.

Specialised centres
In total, the two specialised centres will cost about Sh2.4 billion.

But the national referral which carries the burden of treating millions of Kenyans feels it has been placed between a rock and a hard place.

Over the years, specialised treatment has been a centralised process, forcing Kenyans to travel from all corners of the country for treatment.

For instance, WHO noted that hospitals in Nakuru, and Molo required urgent assistance to treat the Sachangwan victims; they did not have the capacity to cater for the patients.

This translated to airlifting for scores of injured victims to Nairobi. Now Dr Michemi says the national referral hospital is overburden from attending to primary, secondary and tertiary health care.

“There is no use to have one national referral that is overburdened. We need to offload the responsibility of equipping provincial hospitals so that KNH can deal with more specialised care,” said Dr Micheni.

Provincial hospitals for instance should have capacity treat non communicable diseases such as kidney, heart problems, high tension and so on.

This means the country also needs to understand regional diseases and create strategic health spots especially on the highways, where road accidents have claimed the lives of many.

Moving away from KNH, Moi Teaching and Referral hospital, the second in the country, is in a sorry state of affairs.

The only CT scanner available in the hospital, which caters for referral patients from the Rift Valley, Western and Nyanza provinces, is currently broken down.

The Moi referral has been forced to pay private hospitals to provide CT Scans for its needy patients.

This has increased the cost of the hospital.

The director of the hospital, Prof Harun Meng’ch expected Sh140 million from the 2009/2010 budget. However he only got half.

He now needs to go back to the drawing board.

The hospital can not afford to by CT scanner on the currently allocation since it costs about Sh60 million.

For instance, hospital is in dire need for more dialysis machines.

Currently the hospital has only two renal units. The two machines operate 24 hours and cater for eight patients in that duration.