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In a bid to boost healthcare provision in Murang’a, the county government has constructed a new level four hospital, which will serve residents in lower parts of the county.

The Kenneth Matiba hospital will be providing eye, dental care and outpatient services as the county workers to expand it to a fully-fledged facility.

Governor Irungu Kang’ata said he embarked on constructing the facility of the land that was ceded by Del Monte Fruit processing company at Makenji to relocate it from the rented premises to save the county Sh14 million which it used to pay for rent.

“We used to pay Sh1.2 million per month for the rent which is a bit expensive considering it is in the recurrent expenditure,” said Kang’ata.

“The facility will offer specialized services for eye and dental care, and we have an outpatient section where locals can be treated for minor cases as we plan to expand it to a bigger facility,he added.

Speaking during the commissioning of the hospital on Saturday, Kang’ata said he has his focus on improving healthcare provision in the area by ensuring the residents get access to quality medical care in the local facilities. He however said while increasing the numbers of facilities and expanding the existing ones is an advantage to the locals, it posses a challenge to the county as they will be required to hire more medics.

He said the county is still grappling with a high wage bill and recruiting new medics will further inflate the recurrent expenditure.

“Increasing the numbers of health facilities and expanding some of the existing ones will demand that we get more medics and the escalated cost will make it difficult to manage the sector,” he said.

“I have been receiving so many job application letters from people seeking to work in these facilities but currently we are not in a position to hire new medics,” he remarked.

To bridge the gap, the county has now opted to engage the Community Health Providers (CHPs) to be helping in a attending to the patients at facilities especially the level one and two.

This new plan, he said, will ensure the medics are not overwhelmed by the number of patients and the CHPs will also be learning on the basic of healthcare provision.

Kang’ata said the CHPs, being the primary health care givers at the grassroot have a big role to play in the sector.

“This is an on job training and we have come up with a work plan on the number of days they will be going to the facilities in their respective areas,” added Kang’ata.