President Uhuru Kenyatta on Tuesday night commissioned five new hospitals in Nairobi county and directed them to offer 24 hour services to residents.
The new health facilities are part of 24 such hospitals being constructed by Nairobi Metropolitan Service (NMS) as part of a broad Government plan to decongest Kenyatta National Hospital, Mama Lucy, Pumwani and Mbagathi hospitals.
The hospitals launched by the Head of State in the four-hour night operation were two level 2 hospitals at Gichagi in Kangemi and Gatina in Kawangware as well as level 3 hospitals in Mukuru Kwa Rueben, Tassia Kwa Ndege and Our Lady of Nazareth in Mukuru Kwa Njenga.
Uhuru, who was accompanied by NMS Director General Mohammed Badi and several senior Government officials, directed public hospitals in Nairobi to offer 24-hour services to ensure city residents access health services whenever they need them.
“The dispensaries and level 2 health facilities should operate 24 hours services in order to decongest Kenyatta National Hospital and Mama Lucy Hospital. Instead of someone using money to go and seek medical services at Kenyatta National Hospital, they need to access these services at the facilities which are near them,” Uhuru said.
“We went at night because we wanted to ensure that we were observing Covid-19 protocols. As you have seen for yourselves, it would have been impossible to go and do what we did today, during the day because of the number of people who would have been out there. It would have been very difficult for us to do the job we wanted to do and at the same time observe Covid protocols that the government has put in place,” he said.
Further, the Head of State said the operation was aimed at enabling him to assess the population of city residents, especially those in informal settlements where the hospitals are located, seeking healthcare at night so as to enable the Government to resource them adequately.
On his directive for 24-hour service by the new hospitals being put up by NMS across the metropolis, the President said he had observed during his inspection tours that most city health facilities operated only during the day denying residents much needed healthcare at night.
The Head of State said the Government is keen on providing quality services to all Kenyans regardless of their status in life and pointed out that ongoing city sewerage expansion works, financed by the African Development Bank, will also benefit Nairobi slums.
Besides opening the new health facilities, Uhuru said the night tour was aimed at inspecting the ongoing road construction projects within the informal settlements saying so far a total
The Head of State regretted that despite generating over 50% of the country’s GDP, Nairobi residents still struggle to access basic public services. He noted that the final phase of the city’s transformational plan is the issuance of title deeds to residents who own land so as to empower them to own decent housing.
