Kenyatta university Vice Chancellor Paul Wainaina has dismissed reports coming from a section of the press termng them “misleading, erroneous and factually wrong.”
“Kenyatta University is totally opposed to the hospital being turned into a state corporation, which does not fit with the original concept as a teaching facility for medical related programmes,” Wainaina said in a statement.
Instead, he said, they have proposed the hospital be run as a subsidiary of the university, complete with its own board of directors.
This can be effected under Section 3 of the State Corporations Act.
Under the Section, the President may, by order, establish a state corporation as a body corporate to perform the functions specified in that order. “A state corporation established under this section shall have perpetual succession; in its corporate name be capable of suing and being sued; subject to this Act, be capable of holding and alienating movable and immovable property,” the Act states.
Wainaina said the move will establish the facility as a state corporation, which is 100 per cent wholly owned and managed subsidiary of Kenyatta University.
The hospital would be a Level 6 tertiary hospital within the meaning of Section 25( 1 ) as read together with the first schedule of the Health Act, 2017, he said.
The hospital, the VC said, is expected to serve as a teaching facility for university students specialising in human medicine, nursing, pharmacy, dentistry and other related health specialties.
He said the hospital will allow the university to offer tailor-made health teaching programmes that cannot be offered in a referral hospital run under the Ministry of Hlth. The Sh8.75 billion hospital is a modern state-of-the-art 600-bed facility with special medical amenities, including a 21-bed ICU, eight operating rooms, an emergency room, dialysis unit and the latest imaging equipment.
Wainaina said the university management has held several productive meetings with the offices of the Health CS, Education CS and Treasury CS over the matter. However, discussions have not been concluded. “We have made our position on the future of the facility loud and clear and the position of the KU council and senate has not changed,” Wainaina said.
He said they are disturbed and surprised by media reports stating that a decision has been made to turn the hospital into a state corporation similar to KNH.
“We are not aware and are not privy to such a move. In addition, if true, the same has not been communicated to us,” Wainaina said.
The hospital whose groundbreaking was presided over by former President Mwai Kibaki on October 7, 2011, was conceived as a Vision 2030 project.
The original concept was to set up a university teaching, training and research hospital, the first of its type in the region.
When operationalised, it will have the only Molecular Imaging Centre (MIC) in the region, outside of Egypt and South Africa with equipment that can detect and treat cancer at an early stage.In August, the Parliamentary Committee on Health visited and inspected the hospital before recommending that Treasury allocates it Sh6 billion to trigger the release of undisbursed loan owed to the Chinese government.
The committee in their October report noted Sh1.37 billion was needed to enable the hospital carry out dry run and start soft operations, beginning with 160 beds.
“The budget for dry run is Sh891 million and will cover staffing and operational costs and the university will provide the hospital with Sh234 million of this amount.” The university had requested Treasury for Sh656 million for dry run.