Ticketing system to manage long queues at Mama Lucy

Queues at the Mama Lucy Kibaki Hospital will be a thing of the past after the launch of a mechanism to manage the lines.

The Queue Management System, a partnership with UAP Old Mutual signed on Monday, will ensure efficiency and reduce the turnaround time for patients.

The hospital chairman, Joe Aketch, and UAP foundation chairman Peter Muthoka witnessed the signing of the deal.

The Sh5 million project is expected to start working in a month.

A queue management system gathers real-time data about the service, wait time and customers.

When introduced, the system will help organise lines by providing patients with an easy ordering method of 'first in, first out' basis.

When a patient comes in, they will meet a vendor machine and pick a ticket number which will be called at various clinics.

The system will provide audio-visual means for directing patients, a friendly user interface for the hospital to manage the queues and call customers forward.

Long waiting time before patients see a specialist, receive consultation and access the associated procedures has been endemic.

Despite various interventions, patients still have to deal with the reality of constrained systems that end up in long waiting hours with some losing their lives even before they see a doctor. 

The QMS will provide useful tools for the management to control the level of service and generate performance statistics.

The hospital serves more than 1,200 patients a day, has 450 staff and performs at least 40 deliveries, according to medical superintendent Musa Mohammed.

“This will help ensure more patients being seen and reduce the waiting time, hence build patients' confidence in the hospital,” Mohamed said.

The waiting bay will be fitted with more seats and made more patient-friendly.

The hospital has previously been characterised by long queues at various departments especially the pharmacy due to the influx of patients.

“Patients will be directed to the relevant departments in a much more efficient manner. This will improve the outcomes of the patients,” Aketch said.

He added, “We see more than 1,000 patients in a day. You can imagine how difficult it can be." 

The hospital is meant to serve approximately one million residents in the Eastlands' parts of Nairobi.

It was to be Nairobi county’s second referral hospital to ease pressure on Kenyatta National Hospital.

Edited by R.Wamochie