The government of Kenya has in the recent past made commendable efforts to revamp the healthcare system in the country. Despite these significant efforts, the government owned facilities still don’t meet the demand in the country and that’s where the private sector comes in.
In this article, WoK brings you the rich history of Avenue Group – a private company that seeks to provide high quality and affordable services to Kenyans through a chain of hospitals and clinics.
Avenue Group History
Avenue Group was established in 1976 as a small nursing home in Nairobi and has grown steadily over the years to become one of the biggest players in the healthcare sector. The company would later establish Avenue Healthcare in 1995 with the aim of managing the outpatient department at the hospital and to offer medical related services to corporate clients through an innovative concept of managed healthcare. The concept was basically to offer medical services to company clients in the form of mobile and in-house clinics with 24 hour hospital back up. The idea has since worked and Avenue Healthcare currently serves over 1000 companies across the country with a network of three fully fledged hospitals and 13 primary care clinics.
Services offered at Avenue Hospitals and Clinics
Avenue Group’s outpatient clinics offer a wide range of high quality and affordable services to over 400,000 patients annually. The outpatient services include paediatric services, gynaecology services, dental related services, physiotherapy, antenatal/postnatal and ENT services. Their inpatient facility has a bed capacity of 305 and 7 operating theaters that admit at least 10,000 patients annually. All the hospitals are equipped with state of the art intensive care units (ICU), High Dependency Units (HDU), Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICU) and renal dialysis centers. Some of the services offered at the inpatient centers include neurological surgery, general surgery, infectious disease, gastroenterology and maternity services. The hospital has over 200 specialists who provide radiology services such as Ultrasound, X-Ray, Mammogram, MRI, CT – Scan and angiography, Fluoroscopy and interventional radiology. Other services include laparoscopy surgery, maternity, ophthalmology, infectious diseases, laboratory, pharmaceutical and wellness services.
Also Read: The Ksh35 billion Hospital Being Constructed By The Moi Family
Avenue Hospitals and Clinics Branches
The Group operates a chain of three modern hospitals including Avenue Healthcare Parklands Hospital located along First Parklands Avenue, Nairobi, Avenue Healthcare Kisumu Hospital located opposite Kibuye Market along Jomo Kenyatta Highway and Avenue Healthcare Thika Hospital located opposite Thika stadium at Zuri plaza along Kenyatta Highway. The hospitals are open 24 hours, seven days a week. The Group operates a chain of 13 clinics spread across different parts of the country including Embakasi next to Kenol station, Donholm at Greenspan mall, Nakuru along Kenyatta Avenue, Eldoret along Oginga Odinga street, Changamwe along Magongo road, Mombasa at Likoni mall, Kisumu at Al-Imran Plaza, Ongata Rongai at Maasai mall, Nairobi CBD along Monrovia street, Thika road at Garden city mall, Langata at Ground floor of Kenol station, Ngong road at Green house and in Buruburu along Mumias road. The clinics are open from Monday to Friday from 8 am to 8.00pm and weekends/holidays from 9.00am to 3.00pm.
Leadership and Management
In September 2017 the Competition Authority of Kenya (CAK) approved the acquisition of a controlling 56.2 percent stake of Avenue Group by Dubai-based private equity (PE) firm Abraaj Group. CAK authorized the proposed acquisition on condition that Abraaj Healthcare Group Hospitals Mauritius Limited retains all the employees of Avenue Group Limited. Abraaj Group would later collapse in 2019 after the Dubai Financial Services Authority imposed a USD 135 million on Abraaj for allegedly deceiving investors, misusing their funds to cover operational services and carrying out unauthorised and illegal activities.
Currently the Group is under the leadership of a management team that comprises of Mr. Andre Ackerman who is the Executive Director, Mr. Imran Osman who is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Chief Financial Officer, Dr Peter Ntege who is the General Manager of Hospitals, Dr. Catherine Mackenzie who is the General Manager of Clinics, Dr. Wangari Karua who is Chief Medical Officer, Ms. Peninah Kirea who is the Chief Nursing Officer and Mr. Jay Michoma who is the Human Resources Director.
