Nairobi Metropolitan Services (NMS) Director-General, Mohammed Badi on Wednesday, July 15 detailed how the county plans to deal with a surge in Covid-19 cases.
Badi revealed that he plans to triple the required minimum bed capacity in the county to 900 and bolster Intensive Care Unit (ICU) beds in various hospitals.
"Ours is to ensure that the health facilities within Nairobi County have been improved in order to cater for this disease that is affecting the whole world," Badi stated during an interview with KTN News.
"We want to first improve the isolation bed capacity within Nairobi, while the county government is required to have a 300-bed capacity we are working as NMS to triple that to 900 beds," he added .
Badi also plans to improve the current existing health care facilities in conjunction with World Bank as Mama Lucy Hospital will have an 18 ICU bed capacity.
Mbagathi Hospital has also been earmarked for improvement with a 10 ICU bed capacity which was non-existent before as people scrambled for Kenyatta National Hospital.
Badi hopes that the improved bed capacity will not only benefit Covid-19 cases but also patients suffering from different types of ailments.
With the Ministry of Health insisting on proper sanitation, Badi noted that his team has improved water access in informal settlements and heavily populated areas.
NMS is also promoting local manufacturers by buying masks from them and distributing them for free in informal settlements.
The service had also pledged to construct 24 fully functional hospitals in informal settlements in the next three months.
The Director-General shed some light on his achievements since he took over key county functions among them, improving water delivery, garbage collection and improving roads in the county.
He noted that they have drilled 93 boreholes in the last 100 days and will map out water browsers to cut on cartels and in addition, they will be required to reveal their source of water.
Badi also revealed that most construction works in Nairobi CBD are expected to be completed by December.
