The Medical Equipment Service (MES) programme which was meant to be an ambitious upgrade project of the country’s health system where facilities would be supplied with the latest medical equipment has turned into a scandal, with some hospitals across the country lack Intensive Care Unit (ICU) beds.
In Tana River County, a 67-year-old man lost his life last Friday because the county does not have intensive care facilities.
Hussein Hassan had undergone successful surgery however he was still in critical condition and the only help he could get to recover was to be placed in the ICU.
However, Hola Referral has no ICU equipment nor does such a facility exist, so they had to refer the patient as an emergency case.
“They called all the hospitals in the region looking for an ICU space, but none had any space as all the ICUs were filled. This is until the doctor made a call to a friend in Chogoria Hospital who found a functional ICU,” Hassan’s brother Abdi Harun said.
It took the family more than six hours to find help and they were provided with an ambulance and an oxygen tank.
Hassan was being taken to PCEA Chogoria Hospital which is some 488km from Hola and seven hours by road, however, he did not make it.
According Harun, the expenses they incurred could have been cut if only county administration had lived up to its responsibilities.
Tana River is one of the counties where machines are lying idle in hospitals despite paying Sh800 million since 2016 to lease them.
An investigation by the special Senate committee on health found out that in Tana River, lack of power and enough doctors to operate the machines was what was keeping them idle.
The machines were bought under the Sh38 billion Managed Equipment Services (MES) programme.
The county received more than Sh38 million of the share. The county government announced plans to build an ICU but later replaced it with plans to build a High Dependency Unit.
However, no such facility exists, and nor are visible plans to set up one.
The Health Ministry must carry out an investigation so that those responsible for the purchase of the equipment can explain the inflated lease amounts.
In some hospitals, the power supply is not enough to run some of the equipment while there are some people in government with gold medals in corruption and lies.