BUSINESS WITH A CONSCIENCE
The Mabati Medical Centre was founded in 2000 to provide primary health care to the workers of Mabati Rolling Mills, in Mariakani Town, just outside the port of Mombasa in Kenya. But this is a community barely on the bread line, and the workers’ families and community members in Mariakani and surrounding areas were without primary healthcare facilities.
In less than a year, the Centre extended primary healthcare services to the community at a highly subsidized cost of just KSh300 for consultation, treatment and medication. In most cases the cost of just the medicines is more than the fee charged.The number of patients ballooned, from 8,000 cases per year in 2002, to 21,000 cases per year in 2010 and will be close to 40,000 in 2015. The common diseases treated are Malaria, Diarrhoea, skin diseases, urinary tract infections, HIV/AIDS and general infections.With this scale of operation, the facilities have constantly been added to and now also consist of a Diagnostic Centre with consulting rooms, Ultrasound and X-