Traders Issue 8 Demands To Mama Lucy Kibaki Hospital
The simmering discontent is seen to have reached a boiling point, prompting intervention from local leaders.
Edith Stacy 
The Mama Lucy Kibaki Hospital is facing fresh turbulence after the neighbouring business community raised serious concerns about alleged unfair practices by the hospital board, including the encroachment of businesses inside the facility to their detriment.
The simmering discontent is seen to have reached a boiling point, prompting intervention from local leaders.
The crux of the issue lies in the recent explosion of businesses operating within the hospital grounds. Many within the surrounding community, previously thriving on serving patients and visitors, now lament a significant decline in business.
Traders who spoke to Viral Tea on Thursday, February 15 claimed that the phenomenon has been occasioned by the surge of businesses initiated by the members of the new board, led by Dorcas Kemunto, which took over in April 2023 after fraudulent activities and mismanagement were reported at the facility.
Nairobi Governor Johnson Sakaja and Health Cabinet Secretary (CS) Susan Nakhumicha during the launch of the first-ever Intensive Care Unit (ICU) facility at the Mama Lucy Kibaki hospital on March 8, 2023. /CAPITAL GROUP
They pointed a finger at the new ventures, alleging they are run by board members, creating unfair competition and limiting access to vital business opportunities within the hospital.
A memorandum sent to the Embakasi West Member of Parliament (MP) Member of Parliament (MP), Mark Muriithi Mwenje dated February 14, 2024, registered various grievances against the board. Among them was the need to understand the sudden rise of business ventures inside the Hospital compound, most of which are run and operated by the board members.
"As the business community of this area, we feel affected as our source of livelihood is being curtailed by the selfish interest of a few people in this facility who are operating with a lot of impunity.
"Many of us have attempted to follow due processes so that we can also be allocated business spaces inside the hospital to no avail. Our constant pleas have only fallen to boastful managers who have no qualms claiming that only connected people or those who can offer bribes can get business spaces inside there," stated the business community’s chairman and their secretary in part as seen by Viral Tea.
The community thus issued the following requests to the hospital board:
- Find out if it is lawful to carry out private businesses inside a public hospital; this is a new phenomenon that has arisen with the new hospital administration. Previously, no private businesses were allowed inside the precincts of the hospital.
- Who authorized the establishment of these businesses that use public resources for private gains?
- For transparency purposes, how were these individuals allowed to run private businesses inside a public hospital? Were they tendered for and was it advertised for all members of the public to participate in the tendering process?
- Was due diligence followed on the location of some of these businesses? There are serious health and safety concerns regarding where some of these businesses are located. Shanty food kiosks are built without any health concerns whatsoever next to the hospital toilet of all places.
- Engage the management on why customers are forced to purchase things in the hospital instead of allowing them to make their own choices.
- Find out the tendering processes of awarding business spaces and why they are skewed in favour of particular staff.
- Why a certain security official is mishandling outsiders, visitors and even hospital staff with a lot of impunity?
- Why there is a private photocopying machine right inside the delivery room of the maternity and men’s ward whereby; patients are always charged exorbitantly?
According to the organization’s secretary, they tried to reach out to the management on the specific grievances but their efforts bore no fruit, hence their plea for the intervention of local leaders to at least save the situation.
Depending on the findings of the MP's investigation and potential actions, there is a likelihood of an independent audit of the business allocation process, increased transparency and accountability from the hospital board, and improved communication and collaboration between the hospital and the community.
On April 17, 2023, Nairobi Governor Johnson Sakaja disbanded the Mama Lucy Kibaki Hospital board moments after a disturbing video of a 26-year-old woman giving birth on the floor of the hospital sparked a nationwide uproar.
Kemunto was appointed to chair the board alongside Bernard Gituma as Board Secretary while six other appointees including Christoper Githinji, Jennifer Mumbua, Susan Wanjiru, Yvonne Peris, Ronald Ngala and Fridah Nduati were picked to serve as board members.
Gituma also took over as the medical superintendent, replacing Dr Emma Mutio who was posted to Pumwani Hospital as a specialist.
The changes were prompted by the case of the expectant woman who arrived at the hospital on Saturday, April 15, 2023, alongside her relatives when she began experiencing lower abdominal pains.
