The first batch of Kenyatta University medical students reported to the Kenyatta University Teaching Research and Referral Hospital (KUTRRH), ending months of bad blood between the two sister institutions.
It was a handshake moment for the management of the two entities during the occasion supervised by Higher Education Principal Secretary Beatrice Inyangala at KUTRRH.
The PS divulged that initially, 100 medical students from the university will be admitted after fighting to have access to the hospital’s state-of-the-art teaching facilities.
Inyangala said that the over 800 medical students at Kenyatta University will benefit from the modern facilities and equipment at the hospital. Some of the equipment at the facility include Spect-CT, Pet-CT, Brachytherapy and Cyberknife.
“Today we have hit a very important milestone because KU medical students will start accessing the hospital. With the kind of learning experiences the students will gain from the facility, we can only expect them to be the best medics in Africa,” Inyangala said.
While noting that the ownership row pitting the two institutions is being resolved by the government, the PS said that officials from both the Ministry of Education (MoE) and the Ministry of Health (MoH) are working together for the success of the medical training programme.
“We are working together deliberately, positively and collaboratively for the posterity of the programme and for the best outcomes in terms of student competencies and research outputs,” the PS averred.
The hospital management board led by the chairperson Prof Olive Mugenda was at hand to receive the students, assuring that they would cooperate with the university to ensure learners have unlimited access to the hospital facilities.
Prof Mugenda noted that while KU students will get first priority, medical students from other institutions will also get the opportunity to study at the facility.
“They are the luckiest students because we have some of the best equipment like the cyberknife, one of its kind in Sub-Saharan Africa, and the students will get the opportunity to experience them and be the best doctors on the continent and even internationally,” Mugenda said.
The students, accompanied by their lecturers and Vice-Chancellor (VC) Prof Paul Wainaina, hailed the Parliamentary Committee on Education for intervening to end the dispute following their petition.
Both Prof Wainaina and Prof Mugenda agreed to work together despite several years of suspicion, which led to the intervention of both National Assembly and Senate Education committees in a bid to resolve the matter.
The VC maintained that the outcome of the ownership row between the two institutions will not affect the medical training programme.
Thiong’o Muiruri, the KU student union Secretary General, said the number of medical students accessing the hospital should not be limited to 100 and that ownership of the facility should revert to the university.
“This is a momentous occasion that brings an end to the series of demonstrations and petitions. We however insist on being accorded unfettered access to the entire facility and call for full reversal of ownership of the hospital to the university because KU built KUTRRH,” Muiruri said.
By Kamau Njoroge
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