Gertrude’s Children’s Hospital

Gertrude’s Children’s Hospital is a not-for-profit Children’s Hospital established in 1947. Gertrude’s Children’s Hospital is the most established paediatric hospital in Eastern and Central Africa, providing healthcare to children in Kenya as well as those referred from neighbouring countries. The hospital attends to over 300,000 outpatients annually through a network of 15 facilities in and around Nairobi and admits over 9,000 patients annually at its 100-bed facility located at Muthaiga, Nairobi.

Gertrude’s Children’s Hospital is licensed to provide healthcare to children and teens up to 21 years, and provides the full range of healthcare services including preventive care, accident and emergency, outpatient care, inpatient medical and surgical care, and rehabilitation services. The hospital provides specialist care covering more than 20 aspects of paediatric specialisation, and also runs a teens’ clinic providing comprehensive healthcare to teenagers and young adults. Gertrude’s Children’s Hospital is licensed and recognised as a Level 5 Healthcare Facility, a Tertiary Referral and Teaching Children’s Hospital. The hospital operates on a self-sustaining financing model through charging fee for services.

With a staff complement of 750, the hospital employs 90 doctors and 250 nurses directly and works with more than 200 independent specialist consultants to provide high quality healthcare services. The hospital allocates substantial resources towards staff training and development with greater emphasis on specialised training. The hospital has a fully accredited Ethical Review Board that oversees research activities which range from operations research to clinical trials. The Gertrude’s Institute of Child Health and Research which coordinates all training activities provides specialised training for nurses as well as accredited short courses in resuscitation, among others.

Gertrude’s Children’s Hospital has put in place a very robust quality and safety programme that ensures continuous improvement in line with internationally acceptable benchmarks. As a member of the Children’s Hospitals Association, USA, Gertrude’s Children’s Hospital benchmarks its care processes and outcomes with the best children’s hospitals in the world. Gertrude’s Children’s Hospital is the first paediatric hospital in Sub-Saharan Africa to be accredited by the Joint Commission International (JCI), USA. The JCI accreditation is the gold standard for best practice in healthcare quality, safety and management.

The hospital, through the Gertrude’s Hospital Foundation, works with different partners to provide much needed care to children from less privileged families especially in informal settlements. The hospital also works with local and international partners to establish highly specialised services, provide specialised training, and improve the quality of paediatric care in sub-Saharan Africa.