The Nairobi Metropolitan Service (NMS) has designated Mama Lucy Hospital and South B Level 3 Hospital as Covid-19 isolation centres as the number of coronavirus cases soar in the city.
The two health facilities join the Mbagathi Hospital isolation unit, which is under Kenyatta National Hospital, as Covid-19 cases near the grim 2,000 milestone with informal settlements including Kibera, Mathare, Kawangware, Lang’ata and Eastleigh being the worst affected.
Already, a new 66-bed maternity wing at Mama Lucy Hospital complete with an ICU, a High-Dependency Unit and general wards decongesting the main Wing of the hospital has been completed.
The new wing is set to be fully equipped at a cost of Sh145 million before it is opened by end of June.
NMS Director for Health Services Dr Josephine Kibaru Mbae said NMS, through the Public Service Commission, is also set to recruit 225 health workers as part of the 5,000 additional health workers announced by President Uhuru Kenyatta to add to the 2,750 health professionals under the county.
She stated the health workers will be of different calibres including doctors, nurses and clinical officers and will be engaged on a three-year contract.
“NMS is already coming up with a distribution plan so that once they get the letters they know where they are reporting,” said Dr Mbae.
The new office has also deployed health workers at all border points to identify and isolate any suspected Covid-19 case as part of management and containment programme in addition to dedicating Ngara Health Centre and South B Clinic for testing.
“We are also concentrating on mass testing exercise in the informal settlements so that any positive cases are isolated to avoid spread of Covid-19 within the community. The testing also aids in contact tracing,” she said.
NMS, working together with the Ministry of Health, two weeks ago launched an 11-day free Covid-19 mass testing exercise which ended on Sunday. It targeted informal settlements in the city.
A community household registration exercise to map all households that need maternity care, child care, emergency medical treatment and chronic diseases is ongoing.
Beyond these, 1,200 hand washing stations have been erected at various strategic locations in Kibra, Mathare, Mukuru and Korogocho to ensure access to sanitation.
A total of 1,185 water points have been established in Kibera, 60 in Mathare 60 and 388 in Mukuru kwa Njenga. Moreover, drilling of 51 boreholes in different informal settlements is ongoing in collaboration with relevant government agencies, with 15 already complete.