•Clinical officers have noted that healthcare facilities are recording lack of capacity to admit and handle any more emergency cases of Covid-19 patients in the country.
•The situation has been exacerbated by limited staffing, limited ICU beds, insufficient oxygen supply and inadequate and inappropriate PPES among others.
There are reports that hospitals in the country are beginning to be overstretched as Covid cases continue to soar in what has been attributed to being fuelled by the Delta variant. https://bit.ly/3zLyvQ4
There are reports that hospitals in the country are beginning to be overstretched as Covid cases continue to soar in what has been attributed to being fuelled by the Delta variant.
“Of particular importance is ensuring that not only is there oxygen but the oxygen has been properly piped because we can already see an increase in demand of ICU beds and an increase in demand of oxygen requirements,” Health CS Mutahi Kagwe said.
The clinicians now say the country is officially in the fourth wave and want the government to declare it so adding that tightening the containment measures would be the best solution.
They want the President to restrain political gatherings, while contracts of healthcare workers that have elapsed should be extended to help contain the situation.
“It is the opinion of the union that the country dropped guard against Covid-19 because we no longer follow our established policies to combat the pandemic,” KUCO chairman Peterson Wachira said.
“This is evident because we have failed to grow our testing capacity two years down the road, contact tracing is no longer done, follow up for home based care, quarantine and isolation are now bygone cases.”
Data from the Ministry shows that the positivity rate on Wednesday was a record high of 18 per cent after 1,006 people tested positive for the virus from a sample size of 5,584 tested in 24 hours.
Healthcare workers now want the government to employ additional staff to help the already overwhelmed system.
Clinical officers have noted that healthcare facilities are recording lack of capacity to admit and handle any more emergency cases of Covid-19 patients in the country.
The situation has been exacerbated by limited staffing, limited ICU beds, insufficient oxygen supply and inadequate and inappropriate PPES among others.
The Kenya Union of Clinical Officers has further hit out at the politicians in the country over what they have termed as being insensitive to the electorate they are supposed to protect, by holding political rallies that have fueled Covid-19 in the country.
“It is remembered that the government predicted when the country was to expect the fourth wave but shockingly they employed a wait and see approach hence did little to mitigate it,” KUCO SG George Gibore said.
“Sadly, we are currently witnessing large political rallies by politicians and other senior government officers, against the Covid-19 containment measures whose actions are contemptuous in nature and make it difficult for any Kenyan to believe there is Covid and further understand why we have other containment measures,” he added.
Their outcry comes just one day after Health CS Mutahi kagwe urged counties to ensure that there is sufficient and properly piped oxygen in each county as the Covid-19 cases begin to rise again.
Data from the Health Ministry shows the number of patients requiring oxygen had gone up by almost 100 per cent from 100 patients in the recent weeks to 400 by Tuesday.