The Sh2 billion hospitals project started by retired President Uhuru Kenyatta at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in Nairobi’s slums has become a game changer for residents.
Women who had been giving birth in shacks are now getting the help of trained caregivers and accessing proper medicines. And children who had to travel long distances—and often missed their jabs because of this—now get their immunisation doses at their doorsteps.
Family planning, outpatient clinic and HIV testing services are now readily available to thousands of slum dwellers, who, unlike other city residents, rarely had access to health facilities that would provide immediate care, even before one was required to get a referral.
The project was to bring services closer to the people and decongest Mama Lucy Kibaki, Mbagathi and Kenyatta National hospitals.
It included the rehabilitation of five health facilities across the capital at a cost of Sh300 million and the construction of 19 new hospitals for Sh70 million each. Of the 24, the Sunday Nation visited 12 randomly and it was clear that healthcare is now accessible on the estates.
The first facilities to be built were Uthiru-Muthua, Kiamaiko, Soweto-Kayole, Gatina, Ushirika and Green Park. They were followed by Uthiru, Ushirika (Dandora), Viwandani, Majengo, Mathare, Korogocho, Kawangware, Gitare Marigu, Mukuru Kwa Njenga, Mukuru Kwa Reuben, Kibera, Githurai 44, Mwiki, Gichagi and Mihango.
The others were Gichagi in Kangemi, Tassia Kwa Ndege and Our Lady of Nazareth in Mukuru Kwa Njenga.
All the hospitals operate round the clock. It was exactly 10am on a Friday when we visited the Mkuru Kwa Njenga facility. The waiting bay was fully packed with children and pregnant women. Some had to be served while standing as others sat on the verandah waiting in line.
Ms Maureen Wandera had come for her antenatal clinic, thanks to the location, a walking distance from her house.
“This is my third baby. For the first two, I gave birth in my house. I attended only my first antenatal clinic at Mama Lucy Hospital and stopped as I did not have transport. With this (pointing at her tummy), I have attended about three and I will give birth in this hospital,” she said.
Maternity wing
The deputy in charge of the hospital, Awich Cosmas, said about 60 women deliver there monthly. “This has progressed. The first month of opening we had 19 deliveries; this has since increased to 60, we expect more women to come,” he said.
The level-four facility also offers outpatient and laboratory services; comprehensive care clinic; HIV counselling and testing; prevention of mother-to-child transmission; HIV/Aids care and treatment; paediatric care; and tuberculosis care and treatment. It has 20 beds for normal deliveries.
“We have had few cases of complications during deliveries but normally refer them to Mama Lucy. If we could be given a theatre and additional staff, we will have a fully fledged maternity wing, the demand is there,” he said.
“The 24-hour strategy was a blessing; many hospitals in the lower levels do not operate at night. But most women give birth at night. We have served many.”
Gatina and Gichagi-Kangemi dispensaries are two worlds apart, yet they share so much in common. Both are level-two facilities and hailed by residents as life-changing.
But they also share their lack of a gate. Previously, residents walked long distances to seek healthcare services. Gichagi-Kangemi dispensary now attends to at least 70 patients a day, a medic, who did not want to be named, said.
At Tassia Kwa Ndege, the numbers seeking maternity, immunisation, outpatient, family planning and nutrition services have all surged.
“In a month, we have an average of 50 deliveries; immunisation turnout has been so well, over 1,000 children, while we attend to over 2,500 patients monthly in the outpatient department,” says Dr Rodgers Mwandembe, the medic in charge of the facility, which serves an area with 18,000 people.
Services offered include curative, laboratory, antenatal and postnatal, maternity, inpatient services, dental, pharmacy, TB clinics, diabetes and hypertension clinics and referral to other facilities.
At Gatina dispensary, the Sunday Nation team is greeted with scenes of a packed waiting bay and standing patients. “The facility is growing; we sometimes lack seats. It is as though the planners never imagined these facilities would witness such tremendous growth,” intimated a medic, who sought anonymity, adding that supply of medicines was still a challenge.
“When we opened, because we had drugs, we could see about 250 patients a day. But the numbers dwindled slightly,” a staffer said, adding that anytime word goes the rounds that the facility has drugs, the number of patients rises.
Soweto-Kayole and Kiamaiko, which offer only outpatient services, seemed overwhelmed. “On a good day, we can even attend to as many as 1,200 patients. You can even see our waiting bay is fully packed and we have to place chairs at the entrance for our expectant mothers coming to the clinic,” said a nurse we found at the reception.
Even though the trend is worrisome, the immunisation numbers of children have remained constant because “we have the vaccines for the under five-year-olds”, he says.
All the Level Two hospitals are basically outpatient healthcare facilities, discounting the bed capacity of its amenities.
They operate between 8 am and 5 pm.
But they all offer CCC, laboratory, antenatal and nutritionist services.
The NMS in 2020 advertised slots for 600 nurses, 173 clinical officers, 3,116 medical laboratory technologists, 44 medical specialists and 130 medical officers.
But these are hardly enough, say medics in these facilities, their only hope is that these challenges would be looked at.
Undugu-Highrise Level Two hospital seems deserted when we arrive.
Patients, if any, are trickling in slowly. This is the normal flow, a resident intimates to the Nation.
A perimeter wall and a gate secure this facility which is situated right in the bedlam of the slum whose most residents live in extreme poverty.
In a land of scarcity among other life-stifling challenges, the project touched the lives of the residents to the core.
“But now when we come here, we don’t find any drugs. The doctors here just prescribe and ask you to find the drugs from the chemists around,” Mathew Ochieng’ said.
At Soweto-Kayole and Kiamaiko which offers only outpatient services, the two facilities seem to be overwhelmed.
“On a good day, we can even attend to as many as 1,200 patients. You can even see our waiting bay is fully packed and we have to place chairs at the entrance for our expectant mothers coming to the clinic,” says one of the nurses that we found at the reception.
A nurse who only identified herself as Mary says, “If there is anything that Kenyans in this part will remember about our former President, Uhuru Kenyatta, then it is this project. Women were suffering.”
The hospitals offer tuberculosis, laboratory, antenatal and postnatal services, curative treatment and issuance of referral letters to other facilities.