Nairobi — The Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA Kenya) and the Open Society Institute of East Africa (OSIEA) have conducted a value-for-money assessment on the leasing of medical equipment project.

The Kenyan government launched the managed equipment services (MES) project in all 47 counties due to the rise in cases of non-communicable diseases and traffic accident injuries.

MES is an agreement between the national and county Government where six global medical firms have been contracted to supply, install, train users, and offer maintenance and repairs of diagnostic medical equipment.

"The objective of this project is for scaling up health infrastructure for specialized medical care in dialysis, basic and advanced surgery, emergency, maternal child, critical care and imaging services," said John Mutua, IEA Kenya.

Six different private firms were contracted by the national government to equip two hospitals per county and four national referral hospitals with medical equipments such as theater and intensive care unit (ICU), renal dialysis and imaging service machines worth Sh38 billion.

"Seven years down the line, success stories attributed to the MES project can be found from various sources including government reports and media articles" added Mutua.

"West Pokot and Uasin Gishu have the machines not delivered though still being paid for. Furthermore, big challenges are machines lying idle in 20 counties despite the delivery."

The National Treasury's budget policy statement released in February 2023 indicated that Sh5.9 billion had been allocated to MES.

The health sector reports indicate that the Ministry of Health (MoH) has achieved 100 percent delivery of MES equipment due to the increase in the number of beneficiary county health facilities from 98 to 119. The cost has gone up to Sh63 billion.