Sonko Welcomes US Charity’s Medical Equipment Donation for Kenyan Hospitals
Mike Sonko has welcomed a donation of medical equipment from US-based charity Care for a Child’s Heart, calling it a major boost for Kenyan healthcare.
The shipment, two containers holding hospital beds, lab equipment, X-ray and MRI machines, is currently awaiting clearance at the Port of Mombasa, arriving at a time when Kenya’s capacity to treat children with heart conditions falls drastically short of demand.
What’s in the shipment
Sonko hosted a CFACH delegation led by the organisation’s president, Houston-based attorney Solomon Makau Musymi, along with a nurse, an anaesthesia consultant, and Joseph Mutie, a neurosurgeon at Kenyatta National Hospital who recently led the team behind Kenya’s first minimally invasive esophageal surgery.
He said the equipment would widen access to specialised treatment, particularly for children with congenital heart disease, and called for the shipment to be cleared quickly so hospitals can start using it.
The numbers explain why this matters more than a routine donation story might suggest. An estimated 5,000 children need congenital heart surgery in Kenya every year, but the country performs only about 120 to 150 such operations annually.
A study of patients at Kenyatta National Hospital found that 36% of children diagnosed with congenital heart disease died within a year of diagnosis, largely because of delayed surgery and limited specialised equipment. Only 37% of patients who needed surgery got it within that first year.
Cost is a major reason why. Congenital heart surgery in Kenya runs anywhere from KES 300,000 to over a million, putting it out of reach for most families even when a hospital has the equipment to operate. Diagnostic tools like MRI and X-ray machines, the kind included in this shipment, are part of what’s missing at facilities outside Kenya’s biggest referral hospitals, which is part of why diagnosis and treatment get delayed in the first place.
CFACH has run heart-surgery missions and equipment donations in Kenya for years, working through hospitals like MP Shah in Nairobi with visiting US and European medical teams. This latest shipment adds imaging and lab equipment to that ongoing support, rather than being a one-off gesture.
The equipment still needs to clear customs at Mombasa before any hospital can use it, which is the immediate hurdle Sonko is pushing officials to move quickly on. How fast that clearance happens will determine how soon facilities can actually put the beds, lab gear, and imaging machines to use.
