Siaya County has converted the 50-bed capacity Urenga health centre in Ugenya into a COVID -19 isolation hospital.
The health centre becomes the second isolation centre after the first one was created at the Bondo Sub-County Hospital.
Speaking in Bondo on Saturday, Siaya Deputy Governor James Okumbe said the conversion of the facility into an isolation centre is aimed at increasing the bed capacity to handle a possible surge in the number of Covid-19 cases.
Dr. Okumbe’s announcement came a few hours after Siaya County was thrust into the limelight following President Uhuru Kenyatta revelation that it had only 10 beds in its isolation centre with nine of them already occupied.
The deputy governor said that the county had mulled plans to convert the Urega centre long before the President’s pronouncement and the facility will soon start admitting patients.
The Deputy Governor, who was flanked by the county Health minister Dorothy Owino and Health Director Ken Orwenjo, said that the new facility will increase the isolation bed capacity from the current 10 to 60.
He said the county only has four coronavirus patients with four others having recovered and discharged in the Bondo hospital.
The Siaya Health minister, Dr. Owino, allayed fears over the low bed capacity, saying that all the positive cases in the county were from outside the county.
“The only way we can win against this virus is if we continue washing our hands, putting on face masks and observing social distance. Let’s not get tired of observation health guidelines stipulated by the government,” Dr. Owino said.
The team was in Bondo to oversee the Covid-19 fumigation exercise launched two weeks ago by Governor Cornel Rasanga.
President Kenyatta is set to meet with governors on Wednesday, June 10, to ensure that all counties increase their preparedness for Covid-19 as the country moves to ease movement restrictions.
