With the third wave of covid-19 upsurging each day overwhelming the facilities in the country especially the intensive care units, the government has been urged to equip more hospitals with ICU units to de-congest the existing ones which are now mostly occupied by covid-19 patients.
The congestion is largely contributed by the upsurge of the third wave of covid-19 exposing patients suffering from non-covid complications to a point of lacking intensive care.
This comes amid an outcry by the KMPDU and county governments that all ICU’s country wide are full due to covid-19 surging.
According to statistics obtained from the Ministry of health as of March last year, Kenya has barely 500 ICU units country wide in both public and private hospitals.
In a bid to help take part in saving lives during this pandemic, Haven Hospital Ruai has invested in one ICU unit.
But just why should a big country like Kenya with over 50 million people have just ICU 500 units?
The above question leads us to Haven Hospital in Ruai Nairobi where the new facility recently acquired one ICU unit due to high demand.
At Haven Hospital Ruai, Naomi Waithira, an ICU nurse gives an in-depth insight of what really an ICU unit is.
According to her, a good ventilator costs between Ksh. 3 million to four million, a good monitor could go between Ksh. 400,000 to 800,000 while that of the specialised bed is between Ksh. 150,000 to 250,000.
Cumulatively, Waithira tells us the cost of acquiring one ICU unit is approximately Ksh. 4.5 million plus the human resource, the amount could rise to a whooping Ksh. 5 million, explaining why such facilities are scarce in the country.
If you are admitted to an ICU unit, you will be required to cough a staggering Ksh. 70,000 to 120,000 per day in most hospitals in the country according to Waithira.
She says before the pandemic hit the country, the demand of ICU units was not as high compared to now that the disease has wreaked havoc across the world.
The nurse has therefore urged Kenyans to observe all protocols and guidelines laid down by the ministry to curb the spread of the disease as managing the disease is such an expensive affair which not many Kenyans will afford.
Dr. Elvin Okongo is the director and the sole proprietor of Haven Hospital Ruai and here he explains why he has invested in an ICU unit.
The 39 year old director said the pandemic has served as a wake-up call to many health facilities that referral hospitals are full but health services must be delivered thus investing that heavily.
Although the government is doing its best in matters health, Okongo feels it should get its priorities right and consider first de-congesting the hospitals during this pandemic by hiring out hotels or using other government owned utilities as many Kenyans seeking treatment for other diseases may end up contracting the virus from the already over-congested public hospitals.
The medic warns that although children are not very vulnerable to Covid-19, they are super spreaders as they don’t show any symptoms.
He has then urged Kenyans to observe the government’s guidelines like masking up, washing hands, social distancing and being vaccinated.
Okongo’s sentiments were echoed by Thika town MP engineer Patrick Wainaina Wajungle urging Kenyans to be more vigilant to the disease as all ICU units country wide are full to capacity.
On shortage of ICU beds in the country, the legislator faulted the government for letting Kenyans down by failing to put up enough ICU beds to help Covid-19 patients in need of intensive care.
Wainaina blamed both national and county government for the situation and called on them to rise up and equip public hospitals with enough ICU beds.
He said lack of beds showed inadequate preparedness especially when the country is being hard hit by the third wave of the virus.
Wainaina has also urged Kenyans not to politicize the Covid-19 vaccine as this will make them lose focus which is developing hard immunity and can only be achieved if over 80% of the population is vaccinated.