Mama Lucy to be elevated to Level 5 hospital
Mama Lucy Hospital will be upgraded from Level 4 to Level 5 health facility with 120 isolation beds, Nairobi Metropolitan Services director-general Mohamed Badi said on Monday.
"We are upgrading every hospital and building new facilities in Nairobi starting with 24 hospitals in informal settlements. As far as Mama Lucy is concerned we are upgrading it to Level 5," Badi said.
Further, the hospital's capacity will be boosted by an 18-bed Intensive Care Unit.
The upgrading will ease congestion at Kenyatta National Hospital and Mbagathi Hospital.
Earlier in the year, a 66-bed maternity wing was opened at the hospital situated in Embakasi West at the junction of Kangundo and Kayole Spine roads.
Plans to upgrade the Chinese-donated facility started in 2017, but this is being actualised with the transfer of health, among other functions, to the national government.
A fortnight ago, the hospital received a 15-month supply of PPEs from Kenya Covid-19 Fund Board and the Equity Group Foundation for use by its 456 health workers in the fight against Covid-19.
According to Mama Lucy superintendent Musa Mohammed, the facility has an inpatient unit and offers, among others, general outpatient services, accident and emergency services, TB clinic and pharmacy, reproductive health, medical laboratory diagnosis, major and minor surgeries.
Dr Mohammed said the workforce comprises 21 consultants, 10 medical officers, six dentists, 15 pharmacists, 193 nurses, a mammographer, three CT scan and 50 medical laboratory technologists.
Non-clinical staff include four cateresses, 20 cooks, 14 drivers, 60 support staff, 10 mortuary attendants, 16 security officers and two human resource management officers.
Image: MAUREEN KINYANJUI
The classification of medical facilities is the responsibility of the Kenya Medical and Practitioners and Dentists Board.
The classification is determined by the human resource, services and infrastructure.
Level 1 facilities are community health caterers, Level 2 are clinics and Level 3 health centres.
Full hospitals are referred to as Level 4 while Level 5 are county referral hospitals and Level 6 national referrals like Kenyatta National Hospital.
Level 5 hospitals have more than 100-bed capacities and are run by chief executive officers who must be doctors by profession.
A level 5 facility should handle more than 250 patients on a daily basis and a capacity to manage medical, paediatric, surgical and gynaecological in-patients.
It should also offer renal dialysis, radiology services, tuberculosis management, mortuary and autopsy services, 24-hour pharmacy, pathology, chemotherapy and forensic services.
The hospital should be built on at least 10 acres or 5,000 square metres.
It should have a 500 bed capacity with an ICU and Human Dependency Unit (HDU) having 12 beds each. It should have inpatient and outpatient pharmacies, burns unit and a staff quarters for at least eight people on duty.
Besides a medical superintendent, Level 5 hospital should have at least 15 medical officers, seven anesthesiologists, two cardiologists, four general surgeons and two orthopaedic surgeons.
Another requirement is that it should employ at least 90 clinical officers, 118 nurses with specialists spread across different departments, 11 pharmacists and 10 pharmaceutical technologists.
- mwaniki fm
Image: MAUREEN KINYANJUI
Challenges
However, the hospital has also been facing some challenges making service delivery experience some hitches.
Dr Musa has revealed the hospital lacks a Physical rehabilitation unit, Trauma unit, Burns unit, Staff quarters, ICU, Administration block, Psychiatry Unit among others.
Last year in June, City hall revealed that Mama Lucy has a staff deficit of 284. The hospital's human resources department had said there were 468 staff against a requirement of 752.
It was also noted that the health facility had a chronic shortage of skilled and unskilled staff.
The 468 are inclusive of specialists, doctors, nurses, lab technologists and non-medical staff like clerks and accountants.
All eyes will now be on NMS who are up to the task to have all the required necessities to upgrade Eatsland’s best health facility.
Post a Comment