As the country puts in effort to combat the worsening Covid-19 cases in the country, Kenyatta University Teaching and Referral Hospital (KUTRH) will this week unveil 30 new Intensive Care Unit (ICU) beds.
The facility’s board of management chairperson Olive Mugenda said the new beds will sum to 62, the ICU bed capacity of the referral facility that has been handling emergency Covid-19 cases in the country.
Already, Mugenda said that the current 32 beds are fully occupied by Covid-19 patients and that the hospital is struggling to admit more.
Going by the approximate Sh. 4 million cost per bed, the referral hospital hopes to spend Sh. 120 million for the course that is projected to save more lives.
Speaking in Gatundu South, governor James Nyoro who had accompanied Mugenda to inspect the progress of collaboration between KUTRH and the county to run and manage Kiambu health facilities including upgrading Gatundu Level Five Hospital to a level six hospital said the devolved unit has 1,000 isolation beds most of which are unoccupied but are ready to admit patients infected with the virus.
Even as the government continues to enhance prevention of the deadly virus, Nyoro said that the county has 32 ICU beds and 52 ventilators ready to handle patients.
He said that the county has installed bulk oxygen connected directly to the various beds thereby enabling Covid-19 patients to recover with ease.
So far, the county has 40 patients in different wards, 30 of whom are on oxygen.
A 200-bed capacity in Wangige hospital, Nyoro said, has has been completed but has not been opened, a facility he said is ready to admit Covid-19 patients.