India’s Deputy High Commissioner in Kenya, Mr Rohit Vadhwana speaking at Metropolis Star Lab Kenya during the 10th anniversary celebrations. PHOTO/EWG
By BRENDA TATU
India’s Deputy High Commissioner in Kenya, Mr Rohit Vadhwana, has called for closer collaboration between his country and Kenya in order to enhance trade.
Mr Vadhwana said there was need for a roundtable between Kenya and India to explore more areas of business cooperation particularly in the healthcare sector noting that India was the largest investor in Kenya and a systemic approach would enhance trade between the two countries.
The envoy said healthcare is one of the pillars of Kenya-India bilateral relations as apart from petroleum that Kenya imports from India, pharmaceutical products form the second largest part of trade between the two countries.
“These products create a humanitarian or people-to-people connection and that is why Kenyans even with good medical facilities here prefer India for critical health treatment,” he said.
The Indian envoy was speaking during the occasion to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Metropolis Star Lab Kenya and the launch of their state-of-the-art reference laboratory in Westlands, Nairobi.
Mr Vadhwana revealed that very soon some of the biggest hospitals in India would set base in Kenya triggering more investments from the Asian country in the healthcare sector.
Mr Avadhut Joshi, the Chief Business Development Officer at Metropolis, India, said Kenya has provided a conducive environment for medical services that has resulted in their expansion programme in the country and in the region.
Mr Joshi said Metropolis Star Lab Kenya owns a chain of 21 diagnostic centres across Kenya and recently the company partnered with Tharaka-Nithi County to operate their level-5 hospital laboratory under Community Led Impact Partnership (CLIP) and Public-Private Partnership arrangement.
Dr Walter Ongeti CEO of Kenya Accreditation Service (KENAS), said innovation advances made by Metropolis together with their procurement of modern equipment would play a key role in provision of healthcare services and enhances overall well-being.
“Your commitment to excellence has driven you to create a facility that embodies cutting-edge technology, precision and unwavering innovation that you have combined in providing medical testing services with science of diagnostics ensuring accurate results that empower clinicians and benefit patients,” Dr Ongeti said.
He said as Metropolis celebrated their 10th anniversary since starting operations in Kenya, the moment marked a significant milestone in their journey to transform healthcare services and elevate diagnostic standards in Kenya.
Mr Iqbal Ahmed, Metropolis’s Associate Vice President for East Africa with his counterpart, Mr Avadhut Joshi, Chief Business Development Officer at Metropolis, India and Dr Walter Ongeti CEO of (KENAS).
Ms Patricia Arua, an official from the State Department for Investments Promotion in the Ministry of Trade, Investments and Industry said healthcare is one of the government’s bottom-up transformation agenda and priorities.
“So when we see investments and comprehensive approach encompassing different phases of investments in the healthcare, we are very happy and we congratulate Metropolis as a leader in this sector,” Ms Arua said.
She said Metropolis had established itself as a great healthcare partner in Kenya and it is known for its extensive network and continuous efforts to innovate and expand its crucial services in different parts of the country.
And the Principal Secretary (PS) in the State Department for Public Health and Professional Standards, Ms Mary Muthoni, said the Social Health Act of 2023 that would facilitate the roll out of the Social Health Insurance Fund (SHIF) would result in all patients in the country accessing services from labs and to any hospital.
“The Social Health Insurance Fund (SHIF) where everybody will pay Sh 300 and those employed to pay 2.75 percent of their cross pay will allow anybody who is not able to pay Sh 300 to access medical services,” she said.
The PS said the government was determined not to see any hospital send away sick people because they don’t have money to pay for their treatment.
She said the four new health laws assented to by President William Ruto, late last year are set to transform and revolutionise the provision of healthcare services in the country.
Ms Muthoni said the four laws, Primary Health Care Act, 2023, the Digital Health Act, 2023, the Facility Improvement Financing Act, 2023 and the Social Health Insurance Act, 2023 that are anchored in the government’s bottom-up transformation agenda are geared towards the realization of the universal healthcare coverage.
Ms Muthoni added that the Emergency and Chronic Illness Fund would take care of long-term illness that has bedeviled Kenyans for long.
“Labs like Metropolis with proper diagnostics, proper equipment, proper human resources and proper infrastructure will give us the right diagnostics for treatment,” she added.
Ms Muthoni said the Digital Health Act would not only provide the necessary legal and institutional framework for the use of the information technology in the provision of healthcare services but also facilitate the rollout of universal health coverage (UHC) in the country.
Mr Rohit Vadhwana and Dr Walter Ongeti CEO of Kenya Accreditation Service at Metropolis Star Lab Kenya during the 10th anniversary celebrations. PHOTO/EWG
“How sweet would it be that our national public health lab is interconnected with Metropolis, that anything we need, if we need to refer any sample from our lab to Metropolis lab we will not require it to be taken probably physically or carry books all over,” she said.
She added that the Digital Health Act would be a real game changer as it would revolutionalise the referral system right from the health facility at the bottom pyramid from dispensaries to level 3 to 4 hospitals and to diagnostic laboratories like Metropolis who would do the real job of facilitating the movement of data from these facilities to labs.
The PS said this development would result in increasing testing capacity and deploying a robust integrated sample referral system and enhancing quality control mechanisms to ensure the testing has integrity that is required.
Ms Muthoni said in the recent past, there has been a notable increase in the number of tests for diseases like Hiv-Aids, tuberculosis and more people had enrolled for in-care services requiring constant treatment monitoring.
She said viral load testing volume increased from 1 million in 2022 to about 1.2 million in 2023, while tuberculosis culture testing volume rose from 20,000 to 22,000 in the same period.
The PS added that to improve these diagnostics and make them affordable and accessible to every Kenyan, the government needs to improve provision of diagnostic services.
“We recognize the critical role of screening toxins either in food safety, public health, particularly in light of regular cases of cancer from various sites across the country,” she noted.
Ms Muthoni said she was happy to learn about the collaboration between Metropolis and the county government of Tharaka-Nithi and called for the extension of similar cooperation with other counties across the country.
She said the effects of climate change which result in spikes of emergency infections and other health emergencies need innovative strategies to increase testing volumes for samples.
“Strategies that we can deploy together both as private and the public sectors include deploying rapid testing technology,” she added.
