Completion of hospital projects worth 200 million in Lamu County have delayed. This is according to Lamu County Health executive Anne Gathoni who said the county is still struggling without a single Intensive Care Unit (ICU) in its hospitals though it received the Sh200 million from the national government for such facilities five years ago.
Lamu is among 14 marginalized counties that benefited from the funds based on the Marginalization Policy. Of the Sh200 million, Sh100 million was used on setting up an ICU unit, an accident and emergency unit, a modern theatre and a renal unit at King Fahad County Referral Hospital in Lamu town.
Other two sub-county hospitals; Mpeketoni in Lamu West and Faza in Lamu East received Sh50 million each that was supposed to improve infrastructure and enable two facilities to attain Level Four status. The cash was to go into putting up a modern maternity and children’s wing at Mpeketoni hospital and an outpatient ward and improving general infrastructure at Faza hospital. The projects were to take 12 months to be completed.
Years of stalling
However, five years down the line, there is no single functional ICU in the county. At Mpeketoni Sub-County Hospital, work on the maternity and children’s wing stalled for several months after the previous contractor allegedly embezzled the money.
“Work is currently ongoing for the Mpeketoni maternity unit. We had challenges with the previous contractor that forced us to have the works contracted afresh. We expect the project to be completed in the next few months,” said Anne Gathoni.
At Faza hospital, the construction of the outpatient ward is at 95% complete. On the other hand construction of the outpatient department block, which houses the accident and emergency section and the renal units at King Fahad hospital is complete and functional.
