Machakos is among the counties that have already installed the modern equipment. Photo/FILE.
Health Cabinet Secretary Cleopa Mailu says counties like Lamu and Tana River are among others which has had to construct new buildings to house the equipment, may have to wait until August.
“If we take a renal dialysis machine which is supposed to be in 47 hospitals, some counties don’t have buildings where such equipment can be installed, so we are working with them to start a Greenfield and those are the ones I see spilling because even if we break ground today, it will take between 3-5 months to get them completed which might spill to July/August,” he said.
The CS told the Senate Health Committee that the equipment which includes cancer and radiology equipments will be in the counties by end of June.
He also regretted that the shortage of trained personnel had hampered maximum use of the equipment in some counties.
The CS said the government hopes plans to open Kenya Medical Training Centres Campus in counties will help boost manpower at medical facilities.
The Medical Equipment Service Project after the national government and the 47 county governments signed an agreement for the acquisition and installation of the equipment that would be leased at a cost of 38 billion shillings over the next seven years.
The Sh38 billion project is undertaken jointly between the national and county governments to enhance the capacity of hospitals in all the 47 counties across the country.
The equipment was leased on behalf of the counties by the national government and was to be installed in 98 hospitals, two in every county.
Mailu said all the 46 county heads allowed the government to start installation of the equipment in their counties save for Bomet Governor Isaack Ruto.
Under the programme, two hospitals in each county are to receive the facilities. The suppliers of the equipment are General Electric (GE) from the USA, Philips from the Netherlands, Bellco SRL from Italy, Esteem from India and Mindray Biomedical of China.
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