Construction of the 160-bed stalled Sh250 million modern hospital plaza at Vihiga Referral Hospital. [Photo|Vihiga News]Vihiga Governor Dr Wilberforce Ottichilo last week relaunched a 160-bed stalled Sh250 million modern hospital plaza at Vihiga Referral Hospital.The project is scheduled to take one year. On completion and after being fully equipped, it will be a state-of-the-art facility in the lake basin region.The six-floor facility will have two theatres, a renal unit, Intensive Care Unit - ICU and a High Dependence Unit - HDU on its ground floor. The first floor hosts a 64-bed capacity female ward including a medical, surgical and a gynecological ward.The second floor will have a pediatric ward with a bed capacity of 60 that will be inclusive of a medical, surgical wards and an isolation unit.On completion, the third floor will have a 20-30 bed capacity private/executive ward.The fourth floor dubbed the consultants floor, would office consultant doctors and a medical hall.Senior facility administrators including the CeC, CO, county director of medical services and the medical superintendent will have their offices on the fifth floor including a boardroom and a system's server room.The last floor will be an open terrace with a canopy roof for open air medical and related activities including a light weight helicopter landing area in case of emergency evacuations.In his remarks, Dr Ottichilo pointed out that he promised to give health that was on its death bed a priority on being elected governor. To fulfill this, all the four sub-county health facilities will undergo an overhaul renovation and equipped to meet international level 4 hospitals standards to enable them offer all manner of clinical services.The Mbale referral hospital will receive Sh10 million directed towards renovation and procurement of essential equipments to uplift it to the standard of a level 5 hospital to attend to major and complex clinical services including organ transplant.A substantial budgetary allocation has been factored in the 2017/18 supplementary budget towards the plaza and the remaining shall be slated into the 2018/19 financial year budget.The governor assured residents that his government is committed to see the project done to completion in a record one-year time as its his first flagship project.Ottichilo further took the opportunity to thank Vihiga Community Health Volunteers who have besides their frustrations continued to provide basic health needs in the villages. He assured them that plans were underway to provide them with medical kits, identification tags besides putting them on a monthly stipend as a way to motivate them for they are an important group in the health sector.The Vihiga Referral Hospital Medical Superintendent Dr. E. L Ayodi welcomed the project saying that it has been his dream project expressing his full confidence in Dr. Ottichilo's mission to transform the health sector. He added that with the doctor's plaza, there will be improved service delivery more so on complex medical conditions and proper utilisation of the facility's able staff.The hospital plaza's foundation was laid in 1994 and revived by the last regime pumping in Sh45 million that just had the site cleared.

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