Health Cabinet Secretary Susan Nakhumicha has disclosed that a ministerial committee will be set up to oversee the transformation of the Mwai Kibaki Hospital into an autonomous Level VI facility.

Nakhumicha said the facility will be delinked from the Kenyatta National Hospital to improve efficiency.

The CS said that the committee will be responsible for, among things, advising the Ministry on the recruitment of the healthcare personnel who will work in the 300-bed capacity facility situated in Othaya constituency, Nyeri County.

Nakhumicha was speaking yesterday when she paid a courtesy call to Nyeri Governor Mutahi Kahiga to deliberate on the status of management of the hospital.

She said the team will also inform the process to be followed during the constitution of the hospital’s board as well as the equipment required to provide specialised care.

“We, together with the county leadership, have agreed to put together a team that is going to give us the roadmap and the finer details of what we need to do to ensure that the hospital is able to operate as a Level VI hospital. In the next few years, the facility should be able to stand on its own as a referral hospital,” said Nakhumicha.

Construction of the Mwai Kibaki hospital started in 2010 at a cost of Sh1 billion. After its completion in 2019, the facility joined the leagues of Kenyatta National Hospital, Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital (Uasin Gishu), Jaramogi Oginga Odinga(Kisumu) and Kisii Teaching and Referral Hospitals (Kisii) as one of the country’s level VI hospitals.

It was first named Othaya Level Six hospital before it was renamed Kenyatta National Hospital, Othaya Annex. Following the death of Kenya’s third president in April 2022, the facility was renamed Mwai Kibaki Hospital in his honour.

The hospital has also played a part in decongesting the Kenyatta National Hospital, the country’s oldest referral hospital. Mwai Kibaki hospital currently offers specialized treatment namely cardiology, neurology, urology, oral and maxillofacial surgery, oncology, trauma and orthopaedic surgery among others for Nyeri residents and eight other counties in the Mount Kenya region.

Despite being in operation for two years, the hospital is still relying on visiting specialists from KNH to offer some of the specialized services similar to those offered at KNH in Nairobi with Governor Kahiga noting that the hospital was still at the incubation phase of the transition.