Summary
- Parliament has directed the budget committee to allocate funds for construction of a 1,000-bed capacity national hospital for treatment of infectious and viral diseases.
- The Budget and Appropriations Committee will now review the spending estimates for the 2020/21 period to free up funds for the project in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.
- The House on Wednesday said that the money whose amount is yet to be decided will be ring-fenced to avert exchequer cuts-offs and disbursement delays likely to impede construction.
Parliament has directed the budget committee to allocate funds
for construction of a 1,000-bed capacity national hospital for treatment
of infectious and viral diseases.
The Budget and
Appropriations Committee will now review the spending estimates for the
2020/21 period to free up funds for the project in the wake of the
coronavirus pandemic.
The House on Wednesday said that
the money whose amount is yet to be decided will be ring-fenced to
avert exchequer cuts-offs and disbursement delays likely to impede
construction.
The move comes just days after the
Ministry of Health warned that hospitals will be unable to handle the
surge in the number of those infected.
Kenya currently
has 518 Intensive Care Unit (ICU) beds across public and private
hospitals underlining the nation’s lack of capacity for treatment of
Covid-19 patients who fall into critical conditions.
“This House resolves the Budget & Appropriation Committee
reviews the proposed Annual Estimates for the FY 2020/2021 with a view
to allocating funds towards the establishment of a suitable national
health facility for the treatment and management of infectious and viral
diseases such the Covid-19, with a bed capacity of at least 1,000
persons,” MPs said on Wednesday.
The hospital to be
constructed in the year starting July will ease pressure off the
Kenyatta National Hospital, Mbagathi Level Five Hospital and county
level five hospitals- currently handling the treatment and isolation of
Covid-19 patients.
There is no dedicated national
hospital for treatment of infectious diseases in the country in what has
seen the national and county governments convert existing hospitals
into Covid-19 treatment centres. This has however seen health workers
exposed to infections on lack of personal protective gear and two have
so far been infected with coronavirus exposing the country’s lack of
preparedness to deal with deadly infections and viral diseases.
Construction
of the hospital is in line with international standards that require
Covid-19 patients to be housed in special separate quarantine wards.
Under
the guidelines, the special wards must have controlled airflow so that
infectious particles do not travel outside in efforts to limit
transmission of the disease to other patients within the hospital.
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