The doctors’ strike in Kirinyaga and Laikipia counties has sent patients to Nyeri facilities where sometimes there are two to three patients per bed.
Nyeri Governor Mutahi Kahiga on Monday confirmed there are sometimes two to three people in every bed at the Nyeri County Referral Hospital.
Patients from the two counties have been seeking inpatient and outpatient services in Nyeri.
Kahiga said about 50 per cent of those seeking inpatient and outpatient treatment in Nyeri are from the neighbouring counties.
The old notion that the referral hospital is still the provincial general hospital is making the situation worse, Kahiga said.
Patients from 10 counties that used to be referred there before devolution still seek services in Nyeri.
“This is a big challenge and it is important to equip all hospitals to lift the burden from counties that had provincial general hospitals which are now county referral hospitals,” the governor said.
The national government should give counties more money to take care of their population, he said.
Nyeri Health chief officer Newton Wambugu on Monday told the Star that Karatina Level 4 Hospital and the county referral hospital are the most overcrowded.
Karatina Hospital has been affected as it neighbours Kirinyaga.
In Laikipia, outpatient departments are is still working and only admissions have been affected by the strike. Those patients go to Nyeri Referral Hospital.
“The county referral hospital being Level, 5 serves the region but because of issues in Laikipia, the numbers have increased further,” Wambugu said.
Most Nyeri private hospitals are very busy, too.
Doctors, nurses, clinicians and laboratory technicians in Kirinyaga have been on strike for more than three weeks. They demand promotions, employment of more staff and improved sanitation in health facilities.
In Laikipia, doctors in all public hospitals have been on strike for a month over non-implementation of a collective bargaining agreement.
Edited by R.Wamochie
