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The leadership wrangles at the Nairobi Hospital deepened yesterday after the management clashed with doctors over a planned strike to protest poor management at the institution.

Yesterday, the board of management responding to several claims of malpractice, described the allegations as just a tussle by a “clique” of doctors and some people who are not happy with the new leadership that has sealed loopholes through which hospital resources were being mismanaged.

This is after the doctors had threatened to down tools to protest the alleged mismanagement at the facility among other ills. In a notice through the Admitting Staff Association, the doctors said they would no longer make new admissions.

While issuing the strike notice, the doctors, however, said that they would attend to patients in the wards, their private clinics and emergency cases only.

According to the doctors, the strike is part of their efforts to force the Nairobi Hospital Board of Management to resign. But the Board of Management chair, Dr Chris Bichage said the Hospital’s operations were running smoothly and its entire staff was working tirelessly to offer patients the required services.

Media platforms

“Over the last few days, there have been reports circulating on various social media platforms and sections of mainstream media with regard to an alleged strike by doctors of the Nairobi Hospital,” he said during a press conference last evening.

Dr Bichage said the Board wished to let the hospital’s stakeholders, partners, clients and the general public know that the doctors of the Nairobi Hospital were not on strike.

“Note that The Nairobi Hospital is served with over six hundred specialist consultant doctors with admitting rights, in addition to the Hospital’s doctors. This is the highest concentration of medical professionals in a single health facility in East, Central and Southern Africa,” he said, emphasising that the allegations of corruption and poor governance were choreographed out of frustration by individuals who have failed to manipulate the hospital’s sound governance structures for their own selfish gain and have now resorted to mounting a smear campaign against the Hospital.

“The allegations of corruption at the Hospital due to conflicts of interest, cronyism and nepotism, are unsubstantiated. As already said, The Board of Management with unstinting support from the Board of Trustees have put in place several policies which play a crucial role in enhancing good governance within the Hospital, positioning it within the global landscape of governance standards,” he said, noting that up to the year 2020, the Hospital did not have policies and other governance instruments in place which heightened the institution’s risk exposure over a long period.

On staff ethnic representation, he said that the hospital is a national asset and one of Kenya’s heritage brands. He said nearly all ethnic communities are represented in the staff establishment, which is represented by a total of 1, 980 staff members, whereby the Kikuyu takes the largest pie of 617, Luo coming second at 294, and Luhya at 230, while the Kisii comes fourth with 217, and followed by the Kamba with 211.