The outpatient wing of the Mombasa Hospital on Wednesday afternoon was reopened after it was shut for several hours following Tuesday night's fire.
All 68 patients at the facility were transferred to Pandya, Aga Khan and Premier Hospital in Nyali, said Mombasa Hospital vice chairperson Dr Samson Bebora.
He said the patients who were evacuated were accompanied by their nurses to the new facilities to ensure they continued with medication without problems.
Bebora said the doctors’ offices were not affected, and they are open for consultation and out-patient treatment.
“As far as we can tell you, the out-patient department has come back to life and has started working on a manual system,” Bebora said.
Coast regional police commander Rashid Yakub had on Tuesday night said the fire could have been triggered by a gas cylinder explosion in the kitchen area.
But Bebora said they suspect the Tuesday fire broke out in the female ward section at around 7.30pm.
“We suspect the fire could have started at the female ward section. We have lost the female and male wards section, the switchboard and the reception area. Luckily, we did not have any incident during the inferno.”
“Quite a large area of the hospital was not affected by the fire, but we have to wait for experts to tell us on the safety of these buildings and the use of the equipment in the hospital.”
Bebora said the maternity wing was not destroyed, but it is currently not accessible.
“Literally, half of the hospital is not accessible. Bed capacity is the worst affected. All the patients were taken to Pandya, Aga Khan and Premier,” he said. The fire burned half of the 125-bed capacity hospital.
The hospital administration has not been able to quantify the exact loss incurred, but it is running into millions of shillings.
Last night, Mombasa Deputy Governor William Kingi said there was good cooperation between government agencies in fighting the fire.
“We had about seven fire engines from the Mombasa county, the NYS, Kenya Navy and KPA which responded in time," he said.
Mombasa Hospital is one of the oldest health facilities at the Coast region. It was built in the 1890s by the Imperial British East Africa Company.
To date, the hospital is still a prestigious facility and serves the Mombasa high-class individuals.
Last week, Mombasa Governor Hassan Joho was admitted to the facility for about five days when he was diagnosed with malaria.