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{
    "id": 989444,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/989444/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 174,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Muranga CWR, JP",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. (Ms.) Sabina Chege",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 884,
        "legal_name": "Sabina Wanjiru Chege",
        "slug": "sabina-wanjiru-chege"
    },
    "content": "For, Kenyatta University Teaching and Referral Hospital, there will be an addition of 568 staff members. For Mbagathi COVID-19 Centre, 288; for Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital, 94; Human resource for some counties and the receipts are also attached, 1059 members of staff and human resource for national level – 60. The total amount that will be spent on this is Ksh936, 742,782 on salaries. Hon. Speaker and Members, regarding isolation centers, the Cabinet Secretary (CS) of Health has set up functional units in Kenyatta National Hospital, Mbagathi Hospital and Kenyatta University Hospital which has now been dedicated to be the hospital to handle the COVID-19 case load in the country. That means the hospital will not carry out any other operation. Kenyatta University Hospital, which has a bed capacity of 600 had only operationalized 300 beds and through the Supplementary Estimates II before the House, the Committee proposed an additional Ksh500million towards facilitating Kenyatta University Hospital to fully operationalise the remainder 300 bed capacity to allow it to deal with the surge in COVID19 numbers. However, in case of a surge in confirmed cases, the Government has set up other cumulative isolation capacities in the country of 1,893 beds. The projected needs for isolation beds is at 3,116, 2,280 county isolation beds and 836 national isolation beds. To standardise the isolation centres across the counties, the Ministry of Health has developed guidelines for isolation centres which have been shared with all the counties. The guidelines provide that each county sets aside two isolation facilities with standardized equipment and human resource requirements. Further, a standardized layout of the isolation facilities with similar infection prevention control, provisions have been developed for reference by the counties. Moreover, the guidelines provide for capacity building of competent teams to work in these isolation facilities and rationalization of the available critical care facilities such as ICU ventilators to assure equitable access across the country. Counties have identified other small health facilities to be used in the case of the numbers becoming overwhelming. Hon. Speaker and Members, it is important to note that about 80 per cent of confirmed COVID-19 patients are asymptomatic and should not congest health facilities where critical care is availed for those in need. As such, selected boarding schools, colleges, and stadia with appropriate infrastructure have been identified for admission of positive asymptomatic patients. They are aimed at protecting the communities and health workers offering critical care. Just to clear what asymptomatic patients are, majority of the positive cases in Kenya do not show any signs of COVID-19. So, you find people who are normal, they have no high temperatures, they are not coughing and they look normal, but they have the virus and are positive. These are the most dangerous ones because they go on with normal businesses as usual without knowing that they have the virus and they can spread it especially when they interact with people who have low immunity. If they interact with people with low immunity, they will spread this virus hence the need for them to be isolated though they do not actually need to be in a medical facility because they are actually not sick or they do not show any sign of being sick. Regarding the procurement of test kits, lab reagents and other Personal Protective Equipment (PPEs) for frontline workers; as expected the global supply chain had ceased to function in its usual form with the spread of COVID-19 all over the globe. Producing countries of PPEs, medicine equipment and medical devices have restricted exports. As a result, the Government of Kenya engaged multilateral agencies and bilateral relations on the procurement of commodities. Government expenditure has now also focused on available resources from within The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}