•The university and the University have been embroiled in an ownership stalemate
• Details have emerged that specialised laboratories meant for training neuro, orthopaedic, gastroenterology, cardio-thoracic surgeons were turned into a funeral home
Image: MAGDALINE SAYA
Medical students at Kenyatta University continued to bear the brunt of the ongoing ownership row between the college and Kenyatta University Teaching, Research and Referral Hospital.
Details emerged on Tuesday that specialised laboratories meant for training neuro, orthopaedic, gastroenterology, cardio-thoracic surgeons were turned into a funeral home by the hospital.
Medical students, especially sixth years, who as part of their training spend long hours in a hospital, have to commute daily to Kiambu Level 5 Hospital because the hospital locked them out.
The university chiefs have waged a long war with the hospital bosses to allow students train at the hospital but their pleas have landed on deaf ears.
The university and the hospital are embroiled in an ownership row. The National Assembly Health Committee has summoned the Health and Education Cabinet secretaries, the Attorney General and the National Treasury to unlock the impasse.
As a result, KU cannot start post-graduate programmes in anatomy and pathology as envisaged when the hospital was commissioned.
Both programmes were to be initiated in May 2020 but have now stalled.
The hospital management did not appear before the committee to respond to concerns . MPs have extended the invitation to next week.
The ministries of Education and Health did not also send a representative.
“What we got from the hospital is that the number of students has been restricted, whereby only certain study years are supposed to be considered yet they are supposed to have their experience," Dr Kenneth Iloka, a lecturer and biomedical engineer at the university, told the MPs.
"So if you say first years can have only 10 people in a session and we have a class of 40, how do we go about that?
"There are a number of programmes that were actually supposed begin in May 2020 but to date, this has not happened because the university does not have access to the facilities meant for this work," Dr Iloka said.
According to the university management, the decision to set up a teaching, research and medical services facility was because the institution was depending on other institutions to train their students.
The facilities included Kiambu Level 4 Hospital, Thika Level 4 Hospital, Mathare Mental Hospital and Mama Lucy Hospital.
Despite the dream of having the training facility that would help in research, there has been no joint research between the university and the hospital.
The university is still struggling with research in the same manner it has since the inception of the medical school.
“We were going to break even in three years but that has not been the case because some of the rooms at the hospital have been unoccupied, yet some of our students who should be benefiting are not,” university council chairman Prof Shem Migot-Adholla said.
In a gazette notice published on January 25, President Uhuru Kenyatta hived off the hospital from the ownership and control of the university and established it as an autonomous parastatal.
Since its inception, the hospital, which is constructed on Kenyatta University land using state-guaranteed loans to be repaid by the hospital, has been owned and managed by the university.
Vice Chancellor Paul Wainaina, when appearing before the Senate committee in 2019 ,denied suggestions the university had no capacity to run the hospital.
The university says it had agreed with the Chinese government on how to repay a loan towards the hospital's construction, dismissing claims it was cash-strapped.
The VC said the deal entered with the Chinese government had outlined the first three years as a grace period for the loan.
“The university was to begin paying back the loan from the fourth year since by then, we would have reached the break-even point,"Wainaina said.
"Based on the fact that it is a 20-year loan, we had indicated that we would be able to pay."
The parliamentary committee vice chair Joshua Kutuny promised to ensure the matter is resolved once and for all.
“We are going to engage both formally and informally to ensure we sort out the stalemate in the next 30 days," Kutuny said.
"We need to summon the Education and Health ministries, the AG and the Treasury."