The Nairobi West Hospital has today unveiled a 24-hour customized helipad to bolster medical emergency services that target a growing local and international demand.
The facility, a first of its kind Kenya, will boost the hospital’s ability to respond to medical emergencies by facilitating air evacuations in the country and across the East Africa region.
Nairobi West Hospital chief medical officer, Dr. Andrew Gachie, said the lifesaving resource will speed up access to medical services especially for critically ill patients.
“Each minute will now henceforth make a huge difference in our patient’s lives. The new helipad will speed up the time incurred transferring critically ill patients to the Hospital, giving them the very best chance of survival,” Dr. Gachie said.
The facility will also cure the challenge of navigating traffic that has been a major headache in medical emergency evacuation especially for ground ambulances that normally waste hours of crucial time according to Dr Gachie.
“We are now moving away from the ground to a more efficient air medical emergency evacuation regime,” Dr Gachie added.
The 50.5 meters-high helipad that is perched atop its 17 story- modern medical facility is designed to give patients quick access to crucial care in cases involving trauma, critical care, surgery, high-risk birthing and premature new-born critical care.
The Helipad has been designed and built to Joint Commission International standards with a capacity to hold up to eight tonnes.
A trauma bay has been developed below the helipad to handle critical events during the emergency evacuations.
Founded in 1980, the Hospital has expanded into a center offering general and specialized services to clients both locally and from the East African region.
The helipad will be a shot in the arm for the hospital forays into medical tourism bouyed by its solid reputation in the fields of cancer management, Accident & Emergency and transplants.
“We now have the right modern medical facilities that can offer a record 2-5 minutes treatment of critical illnesses. We are changing management of cancer in the country and across the region,” Dr Gachie said.
Through partnerships with Turkish and Indian firms, the hospital intends to offer packages of cancer treatments including bone marrow transplant.
The hospital has a state of the art laboratories, 78-bed ICU facility and six operational theatres that will see the start of organ transplant over the next two months.
Dr. Gachie noted the latest development will be a great addition to the hospital’s infrastructural developments.
