The government is set to elevate Kisumu's Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Teaching and Referral Hospital to a level 6 facility.
It follows calls and requests by the county government leadership to have the facility taken over by the National government.
Health Cabinet Secretary Susan Nakhumicha assured that the journey to elevate the hospital begins immediately.
Nakhumicha was speaking Wednesday when she visited the facility for inspections to establish whether it fits the bill ahead of its takeover.
She was accompanied by Deputy Governor Mathews Owili, acting director general for Health Dr Patrick Amoth and JOORTH chief executive Officer Dr Richard Lesiyampe.
"Together with my team, now that I'm in Kisumu, we will visit JOORTH to see for ourselves the status of the facility because leaders from this county have been calling for its elevation," the CS said.
According to the county government, the level 5 facility currently acts as a regional referral hospital servicing over ten counties in the lake region.
This has strained resources allocated to the county government of Kisumu to run health services since the other counties that benefit from the facility do not in any way bear the burden of its operational costs.
The CS lauded the county government of Kisumu for being bold on the struggles of running the facility and for agreeing to hand it back to the national government.
She noted that some counties with similar facilities were suffering in silence while holding onto them for fear of losing revenues.
"We have counties with huge facilities and governors are struggling and you can see their expenditure, 80 per cent is on recurrent and development is minimal, let them release the facilities," the CS stated.
She said people within such counties need services closer and expressed happiness with Kisumu for putting the interest of the people first.
The CS said upon the takeover, there will be discussions on how revenue will be shared between counties and the national government.
Kisumu Deputy Governor Mathew Owili said the takeover was long overdue and commended the CS for taking up the matter.
