A Senate committee has recommended that Kenyatta University be more involved in the management of Kenyatta University Teaching, Referral and Research Hospital (KUTRRH), a parastatal currently led by a board chaired by Prof. Olive Mugenda.
This recommendation is part of a report compiled last month but not yet tabled before the Senate.
KUTRRH, founded in 2010 as a university teaching hospital, was transformed into a parastatal in 2019 through a legal notice. A subsequent legal notice in 2021 removed the university’s Vice-Chancellor and one university council representative from the hospital board, leaving the university with only one representative on the nine-member board.
The Senate committee, led by Senator Jackson Mandago, recommended revoking Legal Notice No. 39 of 2021 to restore the initial concept of KUTRRH as an educational and research facility for Kenyatta University. The committee suggested that this revocation and the reconstitution of the board should occur after the current board’s term expires.
Additionally, the committee proposed amending the Health Act, 2017, the Universities Act, and the State Corporations Act to establish Level 7 hospitals as university teaching facilities, with KUTRRH as the first to be elevated to this status.
The committee was formed on October 17, 2022, to address a petition by Jafar Muhsin Kasay and others concerning the hospital’s management and its use by Kenyatta University medical students. The petitioners requested full access to KUTRRH for the students and the revocation of Legal Notice No. 4 of 2019, which only the president can revoke.
The committee also directed KUTRRH to surrender its academic/training block to the Kenyatta University School of Health Sciences within three months while retaining a mortuary in the same block. The university students are to set up an anatomy laboratory within it.
The report emphasizes that once adopted by the Senate, these recommendations should be implemented within six months. The hospital, constructed through a Memorandum of Understanding between Kenyatta University and China Jiangxi Corporation for International Economic and Technical Cooperation, was funded by a loan from China Exim Bank, which the Treasury cited as a reason for making it a parastatal.
Last year, KU Vice Chancellor Prof. Paul Wainaina advocated for integrating the University Hospital into the School of Health Sciences, prioritizing medical education and research over clinical service provision, in contrast to the current structure of national referral hospitals.
KUTRRH is currently recognized as the premier cancer treatment center in Kenya.
