Ministry of Health Permanent Secretary Susan Mochache has revealed that the government spends over Ksh1 million to treat Covid-19 patients with a large part of the sum being used on PPEs.
Nurses have to fully protect themselves when taking care of Covid-19 patients with some of the equipment including, gloves, facemask, face shields, boots and an overall.
The PPEs have to be discarded each time a doctor or a nurse have attended to a single patient which can be more than once in a day.
Mochache recently revealed how much patients use on PPEs, “To kit a health worker it costs us about Ksh15,000 to Ksh20,000.
“Remember that in just one day a Covid-19 patient requires about five different workers around them wearing the kit so we are looking at an average spend of Ksh50,000 sometimes up to Ksh100,000 to take care of one patient. Do the math and that patient will be in the hospital for an average of say 20 days.”
The estimation excludes the amount spent on medication and food given to every patient that is normally tended to using supportive treatment.
Mochache added that the government has already forked spent quite a tidy sum on PPEs, “The government has spent 1billion so far to just make sure that we have been able to provide PPEs in the counties where Covid-19 has emerged.
“Remember at every county we have already provided a minimal amount of PPEs. If you understand the PPE, it is really the whole gearing of a health worker so it means the overall, the goggles, sterilised gloves.”
Dr Samuel Njenga, an infectious disease expert at KNH noted that it cost about Ksh800,000 to keep Brenda Ivy Cherotich at Kenyatta Hospital for three weeks and Ksh490,000 for Brian Orinda.
The two were the first people in the country to recover from Covid-19 on Wednesday, April 1 and had a chat with the president via a video conference call.
The government, however, had their demand for PPEs cushioned after they received consignment that included 500,000 three-ply masks from China on Friday, April 18.
As at Saturday, April 18, Kenya had a total of 262 positive Covid-19 cases, 12 fatalities and 60 recoveries.
