The ownership brawl of the multibillion Kenyatta University Teaching, Research and Referral Hospital (KUTRRH) continues causing confusion after lecturers and students raised complaints that they no longer had access to the facility.
The Ksh8.7 billion hospital has made the University’s management and the hospital board to be at logger heads over access and control of the facility.
In a petition to the parliament, it is reported that university staff and students have been denied access to conduct practicals in the amenity.
Kenyatta University Hospital
Twitter Kenyatta University currently depends on other health institutions to train its medical students which the University insists is unsustainable and expensive.
“This is not happening given that KU students and staff have been denied access to these facilities,” said KU Lecturer’s Union secretary general, George Lukoye in the petition to Parliament.
The hospital was established for the amenity to be used for training, teaching and research exclusively initially before it was made a parastatal by President Uhuru Kenyatta.
In January 25 2019, the President put the hospital as a parastatal under the Ministry of Health in the gazette separating the two entities.
The move brought a twist as KUTRRH, as a parastatal would no longer be compelled to allow absolute accessibility to the university staff and students.
According to the University’s Lecturer Union, the tussle began in 2016 when KU Council wanted to change the name of the hospital to Kenyatta University Health Care Systems Limited.
Activist Okiya Omtatah challenged the renaming of the hospital which saw the process fail. President Kenyatta later appointed former KU Vice Chancellor Olive Muganda as the hospital’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO).
During the same period, the lecturers faulted the move to transfer the hospital from KU to MoH insisting that it was against the University strategic plan 2016-2026.
The Kenyatta University main gate in Kiambu County.
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