Emergency Medicine Personnel in the country will undergo comprehensive training and accreditation processes to ensure the safety and well-being of patients.
The Ministry of Health has further disclosed plans to create an emergency care fund.
The fund aims to make emergency services more affordable and accessible for all.
The primary objective is to strengthen emergency response and care services in the country.
Health PS Josephine Mburu on Thursday met with representatives from Emergency Medicine Kenya Foundation (EMKF), led by Executive Director Benjamin Wachira.
Mburu is the PS State Department for Public Health and Professional Standards at the ministry.
“To enhance the quality of services, the strategy entails capacity building for health care workers in response techniques,” Mburu said.
“This remarkable initiative showcases the collective commitment towards a robust emergency care system,” she added.
In January, doctors called on the government to ensure that healthcare emergency services in the country are streamlined to avert preventable deaths.
Kenya has been experiencing an increasing number of mass casualty incidents such as building collapses, but very little had been done to develop an emergency medical care system.
The absence of standardised ambulances, emergency departments, and emergency medical care guidelines for both pre-hospital and in-hospital care are some of the factors attributed to increased mortality following medical emergencies.
Other barriers include poor coordination and a lack of specific training for healthcare workers to respond to medical emergencies.
The Nairobi City County Health Reforms Taskforce report released in January showed that Nairobi residents are made to fuel county ambulances when in need of emergency services.
The report in its key findings shows that the county lacks timely emergency response systems leading to delayed emergency response and referrals.
“There is a lack of mechanisms/guidelines to facilitate access to emergency medical care in private facilities, especially for the poor and vulnerable,” the report said.
It said that there exist weak referral and communication systems and processes leading to unnecessary referrals being made and expensive referral processes for the poor.
