KENYA – Penda Health, a private medical services provider in Kenya, has announced its plans to invest about Sh115 million (USD 1.06 million) in expansion to run until next year.
Founded in 2012, Penda Health operates a chain of medical centers in Nairobi, Kenya that offer high-quality, affordable healthcare services patients can trust.
The health purposes to add three branches this year and five more next year on the Coast, eastern, central and Rift Valley regions of the country through an investment by venture capitalists and partners.
The care service provider will also undertake a restructuring program that will affect between 20 and 80 employees in support service departments as the hospital moves to focus on provision of healthcare, investment in technology and sustainability of the business.
Marion Kago, Penda Health General Manager, Kenya, noted that they were planning to consolidate their business by focusing on their core business in healthcare provision and technological investments to enhance service provision.
“Looking at our numbers, the pandemic has hit us hard as the number of patients went down. We want to make the whole network more sustainable. We want to be able to expand, making it leaner and more stable so that we reach more patients,” Kago said.
The expansion drive will see the hospital raise its centers to 30 from the current 22 centers. The expansion is set to neighborhoods after a recent re-opening of the in-network referral center in Nairobi’s CBD.
The pandemic saw hospitals in Kenya report a declined in health claims and walk-in patients as people avoided going to hospitals in fear of contracting the coronavirus and government issued regulations such as deferment of elective surgeries which were later suspended.
As a result, Penda Health registered 40 per cent decline in patients to about 500 per day from an average high 1200 per day during the pre-Covid period.
Ms. Kago said the restructuring process will affect departments that are not core and outside of nursing, pharmacy, lab and clinical, and reskill and outsource the other functions.
She, however, noted that they were trying as much as possible to see whether the employees who will be exciting can be absorbed into associate organizations to minimize loss.
The gap in provision of health care by the government has attracted high investment in the health sector. Private investors such as the medical franchise of Equity Group, Equity Afia, who recently added five centers to their franchise, have invested and reaped heavily from this.
