A health facility to assist accident victims in Nakuru county has stalled despite the government pumping millions of shillings into its construction.
The trauma centre located within the Nakuru Level 5 Hospital was commissioned by retired President Mwai Kibaki in 2010 but remains incomplete.
The centre was to be equipped with high dependency and intensive care units, among other amenities.
At the makeshift entrance of the iron-sheet-fenced compound, an evergreen podo — planted by Kibaki when he laid the foundation stone — is the only sign of progress.
Inside the deserted compound, building materials including timber, blocks and sand are starting to disappear into the fast-growing grass.
A section of the roof and beams of the one-storey structure have been damaged due to the severe weather conditions.
The project was to be completed by 2012 according to hospital documents but was abandoned midway under unclear circumstances despite at least Sh70 million being sunk into it.
As the project remains in limbo, accidents reported on the Nakuru-Sobea-Salgaa-Sachang'wan stretch along the Nakuru-Eldoret highway continues to rise.
Its construction was initiated in response to the Sachan’gwan fire tragedy in which 231 people died in 2009. A fierce fire broke out as residents siphoned petrol from a tanker that had been involved in an accident.
Following the fire, the national government flew in medical provisions from Nairobi to boost services at the referral facility.
The facility was to offer emergency care to victims of road and fire accidents from nine neighbouring counties.
A spot check found no sign of activity at the site and neither was the contractor present.
Nakuru Level Five Hospital medical superintendent Dr Joseph Mburu said the project is still under the control of the national government.
“There are no plans to complete the facility because it was not officially handed over by the defunct Transition Authority,” the county’s Health chief officer Samuel King’ori said.
Other health officers in Nakuru said the project should have been handed over to the county for its completion.
“We would be able to offer better services to road accident victims who are currently squeezed in our tiny wards,” a health worker told the Star in confidence.
The stakeholders urged the Health and Devolution ministries to intervene and ensure the facility was completed.
“We have written letters to them concerning the stalled facility but nothing has been done. We are still optimistic of a quick response,” Mburu said.
He, however, said that it was a viable project that would have assisted patients with trauma, among other emergencies.
Next to the proposed trauma centre are the Margaret Kenyatta Baby wing which was launched last year and an upcoming inpatient and outpatient complexes.
Challenges of the stalled trauma centre
Mburu said that the stalled project which sits on an acre of land is a health hazard to the facility.
“It has become a breeding ground for mosquitoes which is a menace to those in the facility. It may also be a source of insecurity,” he said.
He added that congestion at the facility could have been resolved.
Currently, the facility receives 30 to 50 trauma cases daily some of whom are forced to share beds when admitted.
But Molo MP Kimani Kuria questioned why the facility which was to be constructed at Salgaa was moved to Nakuru Level 5 Hospital.
“I urge the government to honour the spirit of devolution and stick to its earlier proposal of constructing the trauma centre at Salgaa,” Kuria said.
He said that he recognised that the facility will play a crucial role in disaster management and save lives in cases of emergencies and catastrophe.
2017 task force report on health services in Nakuru
A task force appointed by Governor Lee Kinyanjui in 2017 to assess the status of health services in Nakuru reported that the trauma centre required Sh26 million to be completed.
Committee chairman James Tuitoek said that the county needed to consult the Devolution ministry and the project contractors to complete project for the benefit of residents.
Residents have become increasingly frustrated due to lack of progress on the construction of the facility.
