Reinstated Kenyatta University vice chancellor Paul Wainaina wants the KU Teaching and Referral Hospital to be used by its students in medicine and related fields.
The students, he said on Saturday, are now using substandard facilities for their training and practicals, yet KUTRH was envisioned specifically to help students get the best possible facilities for training.
“As we speak, the students who were supposed to use the facility, unless this happened yesterday, have not been able to use that facility,” he said.
“So we are saying it is not too late. Even if we don’t get the hospital, can that facility do what we expected the facility to do when it was for Kenyatta University?” Prof Wainaina asked.
He spoke during the Kenyatta University Student Association’s 19th Congress at the North Coast Beach Hotel in Kikambala, Kilifi county.
About 5,000 students in medicine, pharmacy, nursing, public health, medical lab work, among other fields, are supposed to be using KUTRH, but they have been forced to use other facilities.
“We have been struggling to maintain quality by using, what we would say, are substandard facilities,” he said.
The vice chancellor said his sole mission is to have KU students start using KUTRH for training. He said that would satisfy him before he retires in a year or two.
“I have been reliably told the issue right now is how the university can get the medical school facilities, which are in the hospital, because there is a wing that was meant to be a medical school,” Wainaina said.
“Can we be allowed to use that facility? Currently, we are almost there,” he said.
This is the biggest challenge that Wainaina, who was recently reinstated as VC, following a year out due to wrangles, said he is facing at the moment.
The hospital’s construction through funding from the Chinese government started in 2012 and was completed in 2018. It cost about Sh11 billion.
The funding was secured through an MoU between the government and the Chinese government, allowing Kenya to borrow $99 million (about Sh11 billion then) from the Export-Import Bank of China.
There was a contractor, but KU was supposed to supervise the project, Wainaina said.
Trouble started when the government, through the Ministry of Health, decided to convert the hospital into a state corporation in 2019.
“That is where our problems started,” Prof Wainaina said.
When Kenya Kwanza came into power, the VC said, they thought they would get the hospital back.
Queries were raised by the Auditor General and the then Public Investment Committees of the National Assembly and the Senate both questioned how the hospital was turned into a state corporation.
“The committees came to the conclusion that the hospital belongs to KU. The reason why we wanted the hospital was to make any health-related programme higher in quality by being able to manage the hospital,” Wainaina said.
The two committees recommended that the hospital revert to KU’s management.
Kenyatta University Students Association (Kusa) congressman in charge of Health Sciences Vincent Ochieng called it unfortunate that health science students at KU have not been able to access the KUTRH since it started operations.
“We are actually training in an ill-equipped facility in the Kiambu Level 5 Hospital, yet other schools all over the country are training in Level 6 facilities,” Ochieng said.
He said they submitted a petition on the matter to the Senate last year.
“I and other students attended a Senate meeting where a recommendation was made that medical students and health sciences students have access, with immediate effect, to our hospital,” Ochieng said.
A year, down the line, nothing has been done, he said.
Glen Karani, the Kusa president, said they were happy to welcome back VC Wainaina after a year.
Karani said they will do all in their power to help Wainaina get his wish for access.
“He has been very instrumental in the success of KU and we would like his wish to come true so that our students get to use the KUTRH as their training facility,” Karani said.
He called on the government to help KU produce the best medical practitioners by allowing them use of the KUTRH facility.
