County General Hospital

Kakamega County General Hospital is a level 5 hospital formerly known as Kakamega Provincial General Hospital. The hospital has a catchment population of 65,995 with an estimated average new outpatient workload of 6571 and inpatient of 1500 Monthly respectively. It has bed capacity of 350.

It was started in 1926 as a military camp dispensary with some of the buildings that were initially used as barracks being turned into wards. Four of these buildings had a capacity of 26 but have since been stretched to capacity of 40 patients on the average. Due to rising demand, four additional wards were constructed to ease congestion.

Other units were set up under the support Kenya Finland primary project namely; Maternity, Pediatrics, Eye unit, constructed in 1992 by the Kenya society for the blind. The outpatient department that houses MCH/FPs Laboratory, pharmacy, radiology, dental, ENT departments and special clinics were constructed in the early eightieth by MOH in the spirit integrating outpatient department services.

There is a psychiatric unit that serves the whole western environs. Amenity section was later put up and caters for NHIF clients though currently not in use as amenity but serving as cancer center and burns unit.  Modern Eye unit has been constructed though needs equipping as well as minor repairs on the structure to fully operationalize it. Mortuary was also constructed to provide embalmment, postmortems and preservation of bodies with a capacity of 109 bodies. Currently the mortuary has been renovated and expanded to modern state referred to ‘Kakamega Pallor’

The hospital offers a wide array of services. These include outpatient services, in patient services, Health Records and Information services, rehabilitative services, diagnostic services psychiatry, surgery, pathological services, Obstetric and gynecological, specialized services (CT scan center and MRI, Renal services, Oncology, ICU), education and research. The facility is also a satellite for blood transfusion for the region.

The hospital just like any other institutions faces a number of challenges including old structures (the main store, most wards), inadequate staffing, lack of ambulances and utility vehicles, poor social economic status of its clientele who aren’t in a position to meet medical bills, inadequate medical equiptment among others.