The Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH) this week marked 10 years of Kidney Transplantation Program that has seen the facility successfully carry out 200 kidney transplants. The Program dubbed Interlife is run in partnership with Novartis.
Speaking when she presided of the celebration, Health Principal Secretary (PS) Susan Mochache reiterated the Government’s commitment to the fight against Non Communicable Diseases (NCDs). She informed that the Government has upgraded the Renal Unit at KNH to a state of the art modern facility with the capacity to do more than 10 transplants in a month. She also informed that the Government has invested in tissue typing, making KNH the only facility with the equipment in the region.
“Renal transplantation is not readily available in a majority of countries in Africa and it gives us a great pride as a government that Kenyans do not have to travel to South Africa and India for the Services.” She said.
The PS appreciated the National Hospital Insurance’s contribution in ensuring that transplantation procedures are available to Kenyans noting that NHIF supports the procedure to a tune of Ksh500,000 per patients and two sessions of dialysis per week at Ksh 18,000.
She said that the East Africa kidney Institute(EAKI) to be domiciled at the Kenyatta National Hospital is a big win for Kenya as it will make country a Centre of Excellence in Nephrology Training and Kidney disease management. “ The kidney transplant program and EAKI will make Kenya a regional hub for medical tourism for our neighbours.” Said the PS.
She thanked Norvatis for coming up with innovative pricing models to ensure accessibility of the drugs to patients. She urged other companies to adopt such models to further ease the burden of medication for Kenyans.
She commended the KNH administration and staff for their selfless efforts to ensure quality of service for patients.
