Kilifi, KENYA: Kilifi County Government has signed a memorandum of understanding with a US based organization Better Place International (BPI) to construct a multi-billion hospital in the county.
The hospital is set to be built at a 25 acre piece of land at Vipingo ridge at a cost of sh. 4 billion, south of Kilifi from July 2017 to September 2018.
Dr. Yuri Millo, President of the organization said the main goal of the organization is to provide sustainable health care which focuses on the Sub- Sahara regions.
He said the hospital will be a health care campus and will provide services for the entire Coastal community at an affordable cost.
“We will provide medication to the entire coast community and 20% of operation will be done for charity work while 80% will be a little payment compared to other hospitals in the region,” said Dr. Millo.
He said the hospital will focus with operations among diseases that cannot be offered in other health facilities due to lack of infrastructure and knowledge.
“Our facility is special in the sense that we will focus on operations and not chronic diseases that can be treated by the County hospital. We can do the operations better than any other facility,” he said.
Speaking during the signing of the MoU on Tuesday, Kilifi County governor Amason Kingi said the county has invested a lot on health services to ensure better lives of the people of Kilifi.
On Monday, Kilifi county governor revealed that the health department has been getting 26% of the total budget so as to improve the infrastructure of the hospitals and all government health centers.
He hailed the move by the US based organization to choose Kilifi as the only county to be graced with the multi billion project in the entire coast region.
“My government has been allocating in excess of 26% of its total budget to health department, reason being we want to improve the infrastructure and ensure no resident of Kilifi misses out good health care,” said Kingi.
“I am privileged to have this multi billion project in my county as I know it will be of benefit to the people of Kilifi and Coast as whole, “added Kingi.
The hospital is expected to carry out operations in estimate of 46,000 in a year and 200, 000 patients in the emergency room will be seen per day.
The organization is also aiming at creating more than 500 jobs with 80% of them going to Kenyans.
The organizations is said to be in talks with the Kenya Red Cross Society to have them provide ambulances to ferry patients from the interior to the hospital.
A similar project is ongoing in Kitengela in Nairobi and another one in Kisumu County.
