The United Nations (UN) has partnered with Nairobi Hospital in Kenya to set up a KES1.bn ($10m) Covid-19 treatment facility in Nairobi, the country’s capital.
The new facility will accept the UN’s workers and family members in Africa, reported Bloomberg. The UN’s Africa headquarters is situated in Nairobi, Kenya, with other offices in Ethiopia.
Apart from UN patients, the facility will also cater to non-UN patients.
The facility will house an operating theatre, laboratory, radiology and physiology services. It will have an initial capacity of 150 beds, including 25 intensive-care and 50 high-dependency units.
UN Nairobi office director-general Zainab Hawa Bangura was quoted as saying: The new facility “will reduce the burden of caring for Covid-positive United Nations personnel and partners on the Kenyan health care system.”
The global organisation will finance the facility, as well as deliver specialised equipment that is in short supply worldwide and may have limited availability in Kenya.
Construction of the Covid-19 facility started on 20 July and is expected to complete in six to eight weeks. It will be built at the Nairobi Hospital old nursing school and is expected to support the isolation facility currently managed at the neighbouring Silver Springs Hotel.
Nairobi Hospital chief executive Allan Pamba said: “This partnership has in effect created two hospitals in one. The main hospital across the road and the Covid-19 treatment facility. This treatment facility compliments the Silver Springs isolation centre.”
