It is a typical sweltering hot afternoon when WoK pays a visit to Kabarnet town which serves as the headquarters of Baringo County. It is a fast-growing town that has lately seen investors pump in cash into developing commercial units.
Along major streets of the town are banners directing people to Tionycare Hospital. The facility has lately received NHIF accreditation and boasts of being the only level 4 private facility in town.
Tionycare Hospital is located next to the Catholic church. The 3 storeyed establishment dwarfs adjacent buildings. The name and logo of the hospital are well displayed on the topmost floor. At the top of the building, a few bedsheets move forth and back as they surrender to the calm afternoon breeze.
But who owns this facility? We take on research to bring you this article.
Musa Tulwo: Owner of Tionycare Hospital
The medical institution is owned by Musa Tulwo, a medic with over 3 decades of experience. Tulwo was raised up in a silent village known as Kapwang in Kabartonjo.
He went to Kabartonjo Primary School and sat his CPE in 1976. He then joined Kituro High School for ‘O’ levels and then Kisii High School for his ‘A’ levels.
He then joined the Kenya Medical Training College (KMTC), Nairobi Campus for a Diploma in pharmacy. When he was a novice medic, he got to work at Nakuru Provincial General Hospital (now Nakuru level 5), Kabarnet and Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital in Eldoret.
Founding his clinic
He would then land a job with an NGO called Bamako Institute. The organisation was sponsored by UNICEF, and was tasked with prevention and treatment of diseases in Baringo.
This opened up on one big challenge that the people faced. Mulwo says, there was a huge gap in proper diagnosis and treatment of various diseases.
“A sick person in Baringo can die of a disease not because the disease is untreatable but simply because modernly equipped medical facilities were always out of reach,” he told a local Baringo County publication.
In 1998, the KMTC alumnus opened his first clinic in Kabarnet town called Tionybei Medical Clinic and Diagnostic Laboratory. He would then go on to open two other clinics in Marigat and Kabartonjo.
Building a level 4 hospital
Mulwo is a man whose principles are based on piety. And this explains why the logo of the hospital has a fish. It is basically derived from the book of Matthew 17:27.
The entrepreneur opens up: ” Jesus instructed one of his disciples to go into the lake and take the first fish that comes up and when you open its mouth, you will find a coin and take it to pay the tax for me and you.”
The core values of Tionycare Hospital are even derived from the acronym FISH:
- F – patient first
- I – integrity
- S – Service
- H – Honour of dignity, individuality and rights of everyone.
