Residents of Kericho County have a reason to smile as they can now access quality, safe and efficient health care services, following the accreditation of Kericho Aga Khan Medical Centre to Level 5 status.
The private medical facility certification issued by SafeCare is the highest level and it is developed by PharmAccess Foundations with headquarters in Netherlands. The accreditation confirms the hospital is committed to offering quality care to patients through the recognition of precise quality standards established by SafeCare.
The facility established in 2013, offers outpatient services with a state of the art laboratory and well stocked pharmacy, and offers a host of specialized medical services.
Speaking during the accreditation event, the Chief Guest, Kericho County Director of Health Dr. Betty Langat said patient care is the core responsibility of a medical practitioner and hospitals ought to ensure a patient is given the best service possible.
She commended the upgrading, saying the move will create a platform to ensure high standards of health quality provision are maintained by private medical facilities as well as strengthen partnerships between public and private health centres in the County which will contribute to the health agenda of the government.
“We are very excited as a County because we work as a team and that our health facilities within Kericho are accredited and have the highest quality of care that is enshrined in the Constitution. Health sector is not about competition. It is about complementing each other. We are able to refer patients from public to private health facilities and sometimes there is a referral from private to public health facilities. We need to look at the patients’ safety and this should not be just about cleanliness. We have infection prevention and we don’t want to have our patients to have adverse effects. Getting number one is very easy and it is not as hard as sustaining it,” added Dr. Langat.
She invited PharmAccess to partner with county governments with a view of supporting more private and public health facilities, to guarantee quality health services.
“As a county we have joint inspections for both public and private, registered and non-registered medical facilities. We do this because 30 per cent of patients go to a private facility and I invite PharmAccess to partner with other county governments on the same,” said Dr. Langat.
Manager Kisii Aga Khan Medical Centre Florence Misimi revealed that the medical facility went through a rigorous quality editing exercise conducted by PharmAccess, where 13 standards were accessed before it attained its level 5 status.
Present at the event was PharmAccess Foundation Quality Advisor Emmanuel Milimo.
By Sarah Njagi
