NMS sets aside three isolation centres for Covid-positive medics

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 Nairobi Metropolitan Services director for Health Services Josephine Kibaru-Mbae.

Medical practitioners who contract Covid-19 in the course of their work will be isolated in three centres set aside by the Nairobi Metropolitan Services.

The centres are the 100-bed facility at Kenya National Hospital, the Royal Tulip hotel and Pumwani Hospital’s School of Nursing, NMS director of Health Services Josephine Kibaru-Mbae said on Tuesday.

Mbae was reacting to accusations by the Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union that her office showed little concern about health workers attending to infected patients.

KMPDU Nairobi branch secretary-general Thuranira Kaugiria on Monday said the NMS has a “careless approach” to health workers fighting the pandemic and blamed the recent deaths of two doctors on the organisation.

Kenya had, as of Monday, a total of 32,557 Covid-19 positive cases, among them about 800 healthcare workers. Half of the infections are in Nairobi.

A total of 16 healthcare workers are among the 554 fatalities in the country.

“We have lost two doctors to Covid-19 while on duty. There are no isolation wards for healthcare in case one becomes infected with Covid-19,” Thuranira said.

Mbae said all asymptomatic doctors are encouraged to isolate at home just like other patients but the symptomatic can use the three isolation facilities provided by the Maj-Gen Mohamed Badi-led NMS.

She promised to investigate claims that Royal Tulip is charging for isolation.

The Health director assured the healthcare workers that the provided personal protective equipment is of good quality.

Doctors in Nairobi public health facilities have in the past few days been protesting what they said were poor quality PPEs which “put our lives at risk while handling Covid-19 patients”.

In April, the doctors raised concerns that substandard PPEs were in circulation. KMPDU told healthcare workers to be vigilant and reject PPEs they deemed to be of low quality.

The union decried the shortage of PPEs especially N95 masks, gowns and face shields.

“KMPDU recommends that the government subject all manufacturers to the same stringent quality measures as specified by Kebs. Some counties have reported that the PPEs supplied from the Kenya Medical Supplies Authority may be a mixture of quality PPEs and poor quality gear,” acting secretary-general Chibanzi Mwachonda said.

Mbae said all the PPEs provided to health workers by the NMS are from the Ministry of Health and KEMSA.

“All the county’s PPEs have been donations from the Ministry of Health while others are directly procured from KEMSA and, since March, there have not been any complaints.

“We don’t know who City Hall had procured them from. As NMS, we stopped their (PPEs) distribution almost four months ago,” she said.

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