- Controversy has rocked the fate of the Kenyatta University Teaching and Referral Hospital as senators and members of the national assembly clash over its ownership.
- Barely two months after the National Assembly Health Committee resolved that the facility be retained as a state corporation, senators have called for the facility to be reverted to Kenyatta University.
Image: JOHN KAMAU
Controversy has rocked the fate of the Kenyatta University Teaching and Referral Hospital as senators and members of the National Assembly clash over its ownership.
Barely two months after the National Assembly Health Committee resolved that the facility be retained as a state corporation, senators have called for the facility to be reverted to Kenyatta University.
The move now complicates the ownership tussle between the institution and the hospital management.
In a report by the Senate Health Committee tabled in the House last week, the panel has recommended revocation of the gazette notice that created the university as a state corporation.
“The committee recommends that the initial concept of KUTRH as an education and research facility of KU be safeguarded through the revocation of Legal Notice No 39 of 2021,” the report states.
The committee tabled the report after months of inquiry following a petition to the Senate by the university students.
The panel chaired by Uasin Gishu Senator Jackson Mandago called for the reinstatement of the KU Vice Chancellor and the university’s council representative to the KUTRRH board.
“The committee recommends that the effective date of the revocation of the Legal Notice No. 39 of 2021 and consequent reconstitution of the Board of KUTRRH should fall upon the expiry of the term of the current board,” the report states.
In addition, the committee wants KUTRRH to grant medical students and faculty full and priority access to the hospital for their learning purposes ‘with immediate effect.’
The Senate committee recommendation has now triggered controversy over the ownership of the facility.
In March, the National Assembly Health Committee asked the university to forget the possibility of regaining the ownership of the hospital.
Instead, the committee asked the university Vice Chancellor, Paul Wainana, to cooperate with the hospital management for the benefit of students in the schools of medicine, nursing, pharmacy, public health and dentistry.
“To revert KUTRRH to Kenyatta University, it would be mandatory to revoke the legal notice No. 4 of 2019 governing its establishment, which is not possible,” Endebess MP Robert Pukose, who chairs the committee, said.
He added that university management must live with the fact that KUTRRH is a state department under the Ministry of Health, therefore, under this committee.
“The Health committee appropriates money to KUTRRH while our sister committee on Education oversights and appropriates funds to Kenyatta University. The feuding should stop and everyone must respect each other’s space,” Pukose added.
The ownership battle has seen KU medical students locked out from training at the hospital, one of the key reasons why it was established.
The management of Kenyatta University, medical students and staff union have been pushing the Ministry of Health to revert the hospital to the status of an institution for training purposes for future.
The committee’s pronouncement came months after a separate House committee recommended that the hospital be reverted to the university.
The Public Investment Committee on Governance and Education had recommended that the Sh8 billion health facility be returned to the university.
In the 12th Parliament, both committees on Health and Implementation recommended that the hospital be reverted to the university.
“The committee upholds the recommendations by the Departmental Committee on Health and the Select Committee on Implementation of the 12th Parliament on the revocation of Legal Notice No. 4 of 2019,” the committee recommends.
“The committee observed that the land on which KUTRRH is build is owned by Kenyatta University, who possess the titled deed.”