Embu Level Five Hospital is the first health institution to carry out a successful brain surgery in Mt Kenya and upper Eastern region.
On Friday, the hospital bagged praises after five of its doctors and five nurses conducted a lengthy brain surgery witnessed by Governor Martin Wambora.
Dr Moses Njue, the hospital’s CEO and a former Chief government pathologist said the surgery conducted on a patient in his mid-20s was to remove a clot in his brain.
He is currently out of danger and is recuperating at the hospital’s Intensive Care Unit.
The man suffered severe brain damage after he was clobbered with a hoe to the point that his skull cracked and the clot formed on his brain.
Governor Wambora said the county is planning to elevate the institution to a referral and teaching hospital.
He plans on making it the third referral hospital after Kenyatta National Hospital in Nairobi and Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital in Eldoret.
In March, the hospital will carry out its first Kidney transplant. It’s working closely with KNH and Moi University.
A school of medicine will soon be opened at the hospital which currently boasts of a modern six-bed ICU, a six-bed High Dependency Unit (HDU) and a cancer screening centre.
The hospital can hold 700 in-patients.
The county will set aside Sh40 million to hire 326 specialized doctors and nurses.
This, Wambora said will ease the burden of patients travelling to India for specialized treatment.
“Patients do not have to travel all the way to India and elsewhere to seek treatment. We have the biggest ICU between Thika and Moyale,” Wambora said as quoted by Nairobi News.
Already, the county government of Embu has set up a medical complex to a tune of Sh250 million in a bid to boost medical tourism.
Dr Njue said once this project is complete, it will earn the county about Sh100 million. About 1, 200 patients are treated at the hospital every day.
They come from as far as Meru and Tharaka Nithi counties.