KENYA – Kenya has inaugurated the Joshua Memorial Mbai Dispensary laboratory in Kirinyaga East District, Kirinyaga County Government to ensure residents access one-stop medical services in their village.
The Joshua Mbai Dispensary offers outpatient services that include Tuberculosis services, pre-natal and post-natal services, child welfare clinics, pharmacy and laboratory services among other healthcare services.
The dispensary will reduce the time taken and resources previously used by patients and their families to travel over five kilometers to Kiamutugu Health Center or private facilities in search of government medical laboratory services.
Additionally, the facility will benefit about 4,000 residents neighboring villages to ensure patients are able to get comprehensive medical services such as medical tests as well as early consultation, diagnosis and treatment for ailments thus enabling timely intervention.
The facility also has a rider who is sent to take medical samples for advanced tests that may not be conducted at the newly launched laboratory to Kerugoya County and Referral Hospital after which the results are sent back to the dispensary thus minimizing referrals to other hospitals.
The Joshua Mbai laboratory is part of dispensary construction projects that the Kirinyaga County Government under Governor Ann Waiguru has undertaken aimed at boosting the provision of primary healthcare in the county by enhancing accessibility for thousands of residents.
Among the facilities lined up for operationalization are Kiamugumo, Kiandai, Kiamwathi, Kavote, Ndaba and Kianjiru dispensaries among others to improve health infrastructure and service delivery with an aim of achieving universal health coverage in the county.
Othaya County inaugurates first-ever morgue at the Mwai Kibaki Hospital
Meanwhile, Kenya’s afterlife services capacity receives major boost with the launch of the first ever morgue in the Othaya Sub-county at the Mwai Kibaki Hospital in Nyeri County.
The modernized mortuary at the referral hospital has been fitted with 66 advanced cooling cabinets with each cabinet holding three corpses, the morgue has the capacity to hold up to 250 bodies.
In addition, the Ministry of Health deployed a government pathologist to the facility who would conduct post mortems in the county to ensure some of the cases that were delayed in court awaiting postmortem reports are fast tracked.
The pathologist posted will further ease the struggle that families go through as they seek to establish the cause of death of their kin because the services have been brought closer to them.
Othaya Member of Parliament Gichuki Mugambi also commissioned the hospital’s oxygen plant, kitchen and laundry areas which were all constructed at a cost of KES 500 million (US$4.29M) to enhance access to quality healthcare services.
Moreover, the oxygen production plant has the capacity to produce up to 2.6 million litres of oxygen in a day which will solve the oxygen deficiency experienced by hospitals around the Mount Kenya region as well as reduce the cost incurred while transporting the gas from independent oxygen producers.
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