President Ruto Commissions a State of the Art Cardio Thoracic Centre, Bomet

President William Ruto has commended religious organisations for working with the National Government to provide affordable and accessible healthcare to Kenyans over the years.

He spoke during the commissioning of a state-of-the-art cardio-thoracic centre at Tenwek Mission Hospital in Bomet County.

The facility, one of its kind in East Africa, was put up with funding from the African Gospel Church, World Gospel Mission (WGM) and Samaritan’s Purse.

“We invite more public-private partnerships to boost investments in the development of healthcare infrastructure and the expansion of services,” he said.

He said the National Government will review and scale down visa and work permit requirements for missionaries to ease their operations.

Present at the function were Mr Edward Graham, Samaritan Purse’s chief operations officer, WGM president Dan Schafer and Tenwek Mission Hospital board of directors chairman the Rev Robert Lang’at.

Others were Cabinet Secretaries Debra Barasa of Health and Davis Chirchir (Roads and Transport), Governors Hillary Barchok of Bomet) and Joseph ole Lenku (Kajiado), MPs and other leaders.

At the same time, the President urged Kenyans to continue registering with the Social Health Authority, saying they would enjoy more healthcare benefits than they did under the defunct National Health Insurance Fund.

“Primary healthcare is now free at all dispensaries and health centres, as well as selected hospitals, while ambulance and emergency services are available nationwide free of charge,” he said.

Further, he said more than 13 million Kenyans have registered under SHA in the past month, and expressed confidence that migration from NHIF would be completed in the next three months.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of President of the Republic of Kenya.