The Murang’a government is in the process of establishing a new oxygen plant at the county referral hospital.
The plant will have the capacity to generate 40 cylinders of oxygen daily to help the fight against Covid-19.
A month ago, the hospital was overwhelmed by the number of patients requiring oxygen, prompting the county government to start the project.
Health executive Joseph Mbai said the devolved unit has imported the plant while the building that will host it has already been completed.
“The machine is expected to arrive in two weeks,” he said, adding that the current oxygen plant has the capacity to produce 12 cylinders only.
On a normal day, the CEC said the hospital requires about 20 cylinders to run its ICU facility, but the spike in Covid-19 cases has pushed the consumption levels up to 40 cylinders.
Mbai however, noted that Covid-19 cases have gone down significantly and that the county currently has only 12 confirmed positive cases in its isolation centres.
He said about 17 others are under the home-based care. The county has had 1,100 positive cases so far.
Mbai further noted that the county has lost 32 people to Covid-19 since the onset of the pandemic.
He dismissed reports published in some sections of the media that the county recently reported over 100 cases in a single day.
About two weeks ago, Health CS Mutahi Kagwe announced that the county had recorded 116 cases in a single day and called for caution.
But Mbai noted that the cases were a result of tests conducted in local hospitals over a span of several weeks.
“The tests were taking up to three weeks for the results to come out so we would collect them over several says before submitting them,” he said, adding that the county is currently using tests that produce results rapidly.
-Edited by SKanyara
