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{
    "id": 389900,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/389900/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 116,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. (Dr.) Pukose",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 1458,
        "legal_name": "Robert Pukose",
        "slug": "robert-pukose"
    },
    "content": "bills in private hospitals, we want to say that we invited the Principal Secretary and the Cabinet Secretary for Health and also the Director of KNH. It is true that there is insufficient bed space in the ICU units in public hospitals including KNH, which is the largest referral hospital in the country. Even the ICU units themselves are very few in the country. In an ideal situation, there should be an ICU bed for every 50 normal beds in a hospital. We had a table which showed the ICU beds available in the public hospitals. In the KNH we have only 26 beds. In Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital (MTRH) we have six beds. At the Coast General Hospital we have two beds. At Nakuru General Hospital we have four beds. At Kisumu General Hospital we have four beds. At Nyeri General Hospital we have three beds and at Kisii Level Five Hospital we have three beds. In total all over the country, in public hospitals we have only 52 ICU beds. There are several reasons why the country has insufficient ICU units and bed space where units exist. The cost of procuring ICU beds is very high. It requires at least Kshs6 million to procure one ICU bed. Partly due to the high outlay required, KNH has only 26 ICU beds currently. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO) standards, a hospital the size of KNH with 2,000 beds should have at least 80 ICU beds. Thus there is a shortage of 54 ICU beds going by this standard, and efforts are being made to acquire more beds for KNH, but this is subject to availability of funds. The ICU units require specialised laboratory support, which is also very costly. The approximate cost of establishing an ICU laboratory is Kshs15 million. The ICU services are labour intensive, especially with regard to nursing staff trained in the critical care. The recommended nursing to patient ratio is 1 to 1. For an eight hour working day, or shift, this translates into a requirement of three nurses per bed for every 24-hour period. There is a general shortage of nurses in the country which also translates into shortage of ICU trained nurses. Trained nurses available in each of the other public hospitals currently offering ICU services--- In the KNH we have 150 nurses; the MTRH has only 18; the Coast General Hospital has two; Nakuru General Hospital has nine; Kisumu General Hospital has two; Nyeri General Hospital has two and Kisii Level Five Hospital has only six trained nurses in the ICU. In addition to services of nurses, critical care requires services of especially a trained multi-disciplinary team, whose numbers and skills require a substantial budget. A complete critical care team comprises of the following:- an anesthetist, a surgeon, medical officer, nurses, laboratory technologist, biomedical technologist, nutritionist, counsellors; these are for relatives; physiotherapist and a critical care physician. It takes time and funds to train a complete team with an added challenge being that some of the skills cannot be acquired locally. A case in point is that recently there was an advertisement for an anesthetist and only five applied. So, you can see the shortage."
}