Philips technology boosts healthcare in Kiambu

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Githurai Lang’ata Health Centre sonographer Lucy Ng’endo performs an ultra sound scan on a patient. PHOTO | VERA OKEYO | NATION MEDIA GROUP 

By Verah Okeyo

Posted  Wednesday, October 29  2014 at  18:27

In Summary

Facts and Figures

• Githurai Lang’ata Health Centre in Kiambu attends to a population of 150,000 people in Wendani, Mwihoko, Kimbo and Mwiki.
• The health centre served 8,000 patients between July and August compared to 7,000 cases it attended to between January and June before the facility was upgraded.
• Use of solar power has extended the facility’s operations from eight hours a day to 24 hours.
• The energy source has also reduced the hospital’s electricity bills from Sh5,000 a month to Sh1,000.

This is the third time Lucy Nduta is saving in readiness for delivery. However, the money saved would not be for hiring a taxi from her Kimbo village to Ruiru District Hospital in Kiambu when she will be due, but for buying her baby’s clothes.

Unlike her first two children who were born away from home, she hopes that her third child would be delivered safely at the Githurai Lang’ata Health Centre, much to her economic advantage.

She says: “I had to pay Sh3,000 to get a taxi to the hospital and another Sh3,000 back… then there are other maternity related expenses which I had to worry about.”

The health centre was renovated by Kiambu government, in partnership with Dutch technology company Philips, and equipped with medical equipment and a regular supply of other basic needs that would make it a model of technology intervention in improving healthcare.

Speaking at the launch of the hospital early this month, governor William Kabogo disclosed that the county government had been responsible for the architectural expansion of the hospital. What used to be a single room with two medical staff has been transformed to a 28-bed capacity hospital. The county government also employed 16 more medical staff.

The health centre attends to a population of 150,000 people from the villages of Wendani, Mwihoko, Kimbo and Mwiki.

After the upgrade, the hospital attended to a whopping 8,000 outpatient cases between July and August and recorded 70 successful births compared to the 7,000 cases that they had attended to between January to June.

Courtesy of the solar-powered ultra-sound machines, the women can now get near-accurate delivery dates as well the sex of the child. While this service is taken for granted by some women, such is not the case for Ms Nduta.

Ms Nduta and other expectant women who used to frequent the health centre had never seen imaging technology which could detect whether their unborn babies had medical complications such as Down syndrome, a genetic condition that causes learning disability.

It is recommended that an expectant woman should have at least four ultra sound check-ups during different stages of the pregnancy. Before, a prenatal checkup involved expectant mothers lying down and a medical practitioner using a pinard horn — a hollow plastic or wooden tool used to monitor the heart beat of a foetus.

The nurse would listen to the child’s heart while doing mental calculations, a method with a high level of inaccuracy when external noise and the level of alertness of the health worker are factored in.

Father-to-be Kuria Mwangi, 27, is not only excited that he knows his wife is expecting a girl but he also has ultrasound scan images of his unborn child at home.

Along with the equipment, Philips also provided information technology solutions in conducting mundane yet critical procedures such as checking a patient’s blood pressure and weight.

The clinical officer in charge of the centre, Ms Agnes Rutere, told the Business Daily that initially, checking patients’ blood pressure and weight were manual, leaving room for mistakes and misplacing of crucial data.

The equipment being used to examine patients automates the processes and prints out the results. These results are automatically stored in the machine, helping build a database that can be reviewed anytime the patient visits the hospital.