State to set up 50 more hospitals as UHC takes shape

The government is in the process of establishing 50 new Level 3 facilities across the country as a key accelerator of the Universal Health Coverage.

The facilities will decongest Level 4 hospitals and take services closer to the people especially in informal settlements.

Level 3 facilities are small hospitals with minimal facilities, yet they offer services like the big ones.

They are run by at least one doctor, clinical officers and nurses.

They offer services such as maternity, dental, TB clinics, diabetes and hypertension, comprehensive care for patients living with HIV, baby well clinics, antenatal and postnatal services.

Last week, President Uhuru Kenyatta launched the national scale up of UHC which seeks to ensure all Kenyans access quality healthcare.

“These facilities are an addition to the already existing facilities, all of which will require professional services of qualified officers,” Health CS Mutahi Kagwe said.

UHC is one of Uhuru’s Big 4 Agenda and is anchored on three pillars— accessibility, quality care and affordability.

Even though it remains unclear when the construction is expected to start, Uhuru during his Mashujaa Day speech, directed the National Treasury to allocate Sh3.2 billion for immediate construction of the 50 facilities.

He further said a comprehensive nationwide programme was in place to upgrade selected hospitals in all the 47 counties.

This will see provision of specialised, modern medical, diagnostic and critical care equipment.

“Training is expected to respond to questions of quality," Kagwe said.

"The standards to which services are to be delivered depend a lot on what is done in the professional healthcare workers’ formative years in college."

He added, “Poor training quality would inevitably lead to poor service at the health facility; hence the need to ensure what is done is the very best.”

The ministry has however acknowledged that UHC can only be attained if people have faith in public hospitals.

This has been attributed to poor reception and "mistreatment" of patients in public health facilities that makes patients opt for private facilities.

As a result, some incur huge bills and end up being held.

“We must not forget that human beings remain social beings, very concerned in how they are handled more than anything else," Kagwe said.

"The customer service in all our facilities must improve, all we need to do is ensure we put a smile on our patients’ faces.”

After months of consultations, government settled for a two-phase strategy in which the UHC model was to be first piloted in four counties before rolling it out to the rest of the country.

The four counties are Kisumu, Machakos, Nyeri and Isiolo, all of which were selected because collectively they have a high prevalence of communicable and non-communicable diseases, high population density, high maternal mortality, and high incidence of road traffic injuries.

According to the World Health Organisation, protecting people from the financial consequences of paying for health services out of their own pockets reduces poverty.