Uasin Gishu County has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with ELSMED healthcare solutions from Israel to boost the healthcare services across all its facilities.
The project will refurbish 23 Health facilities and will eventually cover all the 138 health facilities in the county with ELSMED having undertaken to inject Sh427 million to finance the operations in a collaboration expected to be in force for 10 years.
Uasin Gishu Governor Jonathan Bii while addressing the press at the forum said the signing of the MOU is the culmination of the previous meeting with the Israel Ambassador to Kenya Michael Lotem on November 7, 2022.
Bii said the partnership will cover the financing by ELSMED of various areas like diabetes and Hypertension treatment Centres of excellence, drones support system, Medical Information Technology (IT), Infrastructure Services and Turnkey Laboratory Diagnostic solutions system.
“ELSMED Health care solutions are working with Siemens international, which provides equipment and machinery to the county under placement contract,” disclosed the Governor.
‘‘Therefore, ELSMED healthcare solutions undertakes to maintain the equipment, services and replace them when obsolete, as well as provide consumables, reagents and other requirements at affordable and competitive prices to the county,’’ Bii added.
He added that the county on its part shall reinvent the finances generated by the project in the department of health services through the Facility Improvement Bill (FIF) which will ensure there is prompt payment for consumables provided by ELSMED and that the FIF account shall be managed according to the Government Public Finance Management (PMF) Act 2015.
According to Deputy Governor Eng. John Barorot, the partnership will see Uasin Gishu District Hospital (UGDH) receive most of the sophisticated equipment enhancing its digital transformation.
He added that the project will also be extended to 23 additional facilities in the County and the NOREB region, to enable them to monitor the drugs in the facilities and bring services closer to the people.
‘‘We will be using drones to collect samples every time sophisticated diagnostic tools are needed in an IT format,” he said.
The CEO of ELSMED, Yaron Farachi, stated that the alliance represents a symbol of saving lives by giving people hope, noting that residents will receive diagnostics with ease because they will have modern technologies for dealing with health difficulties.
By Judy Too and Faith Jelagat
