The County Government of Murang’a has completed the construction of a 35-bed ICU unit at the Murang’a Level 5 Hospital within a period of 19 days from the day a foundation stone was laid in preparations for the novel COVID-19 Virus.
Earlier the county boss, Governor Mwangi wa Iria who personally supervised the construction of the 35-bed ICU day to day alongside county architects and engineers, had announced that the construction works would be completed in a record time of 21 days but the facility was complete two days earlier with only fitting and equipping of the wards left to be done, thanks to the over two hundred workers on site who worked day and night disregarding the dusk-to-dawn curfew to ensure things moved according to the plan.
Quality not compromised
Engineer Amos Njoroge, the County’s Public Works executive mandated with the delivery of the project, said that quality was not compromised by the speed in which the project was executed.
“A lot of professionalism was involved in the construction of the 600 meter square structure. We also used special materials that support fast construction. In a normal building, plastering should take about seven days to dry up but the materials used in plastering the ICU building were able to dry up in only two days. The materials not only supported fast construction but also made the structure of the building even stronger,” explained Eng. Njoroge.
The genesis of the Idea to establish the ICU facility in Muran’ga
The Murang’a County Health executive, Mr. Joseph Mbai said that the idea to establish the ICU facility was conceived long before Covid-19 to being.
“The county of Murang’a has only six ICU machines at the Kiria-ini Mission Hospital in Mathioya constituency and limited beds in all its public and private health facilities which necessitated shipment of critically ill patients from this region to Thika and Nairobi counties” said Mbai.
Once fully equipped, the facility will be the biggest ICU ward in Central Kenya region, and the fastest labor-intensive county medical project in the republic of Kenya.
