Sh500m accident trauma centre awaits completion six years on

An incomplete trauma center at Riftvalley provincial General Hospital( PGH) in Nakuru on October 13,2016.PHOTO:KIPSANG JOSEPH

A facility meant to assist accident victims has stalled despite the fact that millions of shillings have already been pumped into it.

Retired President Mwai Kibaki commissioned the Sh500 million trauma centre to offer emergency care to victims of road and fire accidents six years ago, when an initial Sh60 million was put in.

However, nothing is happening at the site and even the contractor has since left.

The facility that was being put up under Mr Kibaki’s Ministry of Special Programmes targeted victims of accidents at the notorious Salgaa black spot and Barnabas.

The one-storey structure with several rooms has no doors or windows; only the roof and walls are complete.

Sources in the Rift Valley Provincial General Hospital’s trauma centre said the hospital had so far used millions of shillings on the facility but required more to complete it.

BETTER SERVICES

“The project is still under the control of the national government and there is nothing much we can do about it. I wish the project had been handed to us. We would be able to offer better services to road accident victims who are currently squeezed in our tiny wards,” said the source who did not wish to be named for fear of victimisation.

But Rift Valley Regional Co-ordinator Wanyama Musiambo said the project must have been handed over to the county by the defunct Transition Authority.

“All health-related facilities were handed to county governments a long time ago, the trauma centre included. The county is better placed to explain why construction stalled,” Mr Musiambo said.

Health Executive Kabii Mungai on the other hand accused the national government of failing to clear a Sh90 million debt reportedly owed to the contractor.

Dr Mungai said they still needed Sh300 million to complete and equip the facility. He urged the Devolution ministry to intervene and ensure the facility was completed.

“We have written several letters to them concerning the stalled facility but nothing has been done. They quietly abandoned the project along the way,” he said.

FUEL TANKER

The trauma centre was initiated in response to the Sachan’gwan fire tragedy in which 231 people died in 2009, when a fierce fire broke out as they siphoned petrol from a tanker that had been involved in an accident.

The fuel tanker burst into flames two hours after it overturned along the Nakuru-Eldoret highway.

Following the fire, the national government had fly in medical provisions from Nairobi to boost services at the Rift Valley General Hospital.

Residents are becoming increasingly frustrated due to lack of progress on the centre. Inside the deserted iron sheet-fenced compound, some of the building materials including timber, construction blocks and sand are starting to disappear into the growing grass.

At the temporary entrance, an evergreen Podo tree planted by Kibaki when he laid the foundation stone remains the only progressing development on the site.

In 2014, the county announced fresh plans to build a Sh20 million trauma centre in Naivasha.