Mwai Kibaki hospital has been unveiled following the rebranding of the Kenyatta National Hospital Othaya annexe.
The facility which is a level six hospital was opened in 2019 to help decongest Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH) as it serves five counties of the Mt. Kenya region and the counties in its environs.
As preparations for the ceremony to lay to rest Kenya's third president Mwai Kibaki are on top gear, earlier today, the name Kenyatta National Hospital -Othaya was replaced with Mwai Kibaki hospital.
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According to Dr. Peter Muiruri who is a senior director in the hospital the name was changed to Mwai Kibaki hospital after the government and Kibaki's family agreed to have the name changed as the hospital has now reached the standards to be named after the president to honour his legacy.
Locals welcome the new move to rename the health facility to Mwai Kibaki hospital
It is a move that has been received well by the Othaya residents as they say it is a way of honouring him.
"We are very happy that the hospital has been named after our former president. This will keep reminding us of the legacy that our hero has left behind. He will forever remain in our hearts," a resident said.
Patrick Mwangi says the former president did not want any place to be named after him when he was alive and he had said he would only want that to happen when he was gone.
" I'm very happy now that we have a hospital named after our former president. He never wanted anything to be named after him when alive and I remember when we held a fundraiser in our school in 1975 where he was the chief guest, the school headteacher suggested that the school be named after him but he declined," Mwangi recalled.
PHOTO/Loise Wambugu.
Chinga ward Member of the County Assembly Kiruga Thuku applauded the move to change the name but said the hospital should be independent.
"Good move, but we want to see the words Mwai Teaching and Referral Hospital. What is written is different. And the umbilical cord between the Othaya hospital and KNH Nairobi must be severed and the facility becomes autonomous with direct funding from the exchequer like all other level six hospitals in the country," he said.
Nyeri governor Mutahi Kahiga during a requiem mass at Dedan Kimathi university of Technology yesterday recounted how he was sent to mzee Kibaki by the Nyeri leadership to request him to have the hospital named after him, noting that what the former head of state said to him, he would never dare name anything after him.
"I had the opportunity one day having been sent by Ngunjiri Wambugu and the leaders of Nyeri to sit with his Excellency Mwai Kibaki to humbly request him to allow us to name a hospital after him I will not get into the details but after 30 minutes we left that hall and we never tried to name anything after him," Kahiga explained.
