Nairobi Hospital lines up Sh10bn special care units

Nairobi Hospital CEO Cleopa Mailu (left) and Development Secretary for Cooperative Development Nelson Githinji (centre) during the hospital's ISO certification ceremony on September 10, 2013.SALATON NJAU  

By George Omondi

In Summary

• The Nairobi Hospital sets sights on kidney and lung centres in expansion covering seven years.
• The hospital will set up 16 specialised treatment units covering mostly kidney and lung ailments.
• The facility is positioning itself to get a slice of the millions of shillings that Kenyans spend every year on specialised treatment abroad.

The Nairobi Hospital has lined up a Sh10 billion expansion plan to lift its referral capacity and lock in millions of shillings the region spends annually on specialised treatment abroad.

The seven-year expenditure plan, to be implemented in four phases, will see the hospital set up 16 specialised treatment units covering mostly kidney and lung ailments.

“Most the buildings that we have will be brought down and replaced with eight-nine storeyed ones for maximum space utilisation,” Nairobi Hospital CEO Cleopa Mailu told the Business Daily on Tuesday.

The first phase of the grand plan is already under construction in Nairobi. At the end of phase four, the hospital will have 750 additional beds and several satellite branches, Dr Mailu said of a facility which currently has 356 beds.

“We have a fairly ambitious plan to more than double the capacity of Nairobi Hospital to serve as the referral facility and centre of excellence for East Africa,” said Isaac Awuondo, chairman of Kenya Hospital Association Board of Management.

The officials made the statements in Nairobi on Tuesday shortly after the Nairobi Hospital was awarded ISO accreditation for laboratory medicine by the Kenya National Accreditation Service (KENAS).

“We hope this accreditation is a major step towards ending the growing cases of misdiagnosis by hospitals and one way of reducing the child mortality rate in line with Vision 2030,” said KENAS managing director Sammy Milgo.

KENAS officials said all the hospital’s operations would be reviewed and ISO-certified to guarantee higher quality services.

The hospital’s upgraded laboratory has a capacity to handle 4,200 tests a day – including specialised cases that have traditionally been performed abroad.

“We have always done well as a referral facility for the region except in our laboratory medicine which has nagged us in the past for not matching international standards,” said Dr Mailu.

Major hospitals have in recent months taken positions to get a slice of the millions of shillings that citizens spend every year on specialised treatment in places such as India.

(READ: Hospitals splash out billions in race for middle class patients)

The Aga Khan University Hospital, Avenue Group, Coptic Hospital, Kenyatta University, and AAR Health Services have all launched major expansion plans.

The four are separately at various stages of expansion worth more than Sh2.5 billion. The plans target the growing middle class in Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania and Uganda that traditionally seek medical care in Kenya.

The African Development Bank estimates that 16.8 per cent of Kenya’s population (6.7 million people) falls in the middle class – earn between Sh870 and Sh1,740 per day.