Governor revives plans to privatise Embu Hospital

Governor Martin Wambora has vowed to proceed with plans to convert Embu Teaching and Referral Hospital into a semi-autonomous entity.

The governor argues that transforming the facility into a parastatal will help to improve the quality of medical services by eliminating State bureaucracy.

Initial plans to convert the hospital into a semi-autonomous facility failed when the county assembly failed to pass into law the Embu County Referral Hospital Management Bill of 2015.

Critics of Mr Wambora's plan argue that privatising the hospital would make it expensive for poor patients

But Wambora denies this, citing the case of Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH) in Nairobi, which he said offered good services at costs lower than most private hospitals.

“We mean well by privatising the hospital. We just want to improve services for residents. We want to give the hospital some autonomy just like KNH or Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital. We are not selling the facility but seeking to improve the quality of services,” he said.

Speaking in Embu town after meeting his cabinet yesterday, Wambora said the idea behind the privatisation came from benchmarking against globally renowned hospitals.

He said as a parastatal, the hospital would manage its medical staff efficiently and optimally, as witnessed in public Indian medical facilities.

“That is the route we want to go. We do not want the hospital to be tied down by Government bureaucracy."

Wambora clarified that the facility would not be transformed into an entirely private hospital and that efforts would be made to make services affordable.

Manyatta MP John Muchiri has criticised the privatisation plans and accused the governor of not involving the public in the move. The MP expressed fear that changing the hospital's status would make it expensive and out of reach for ordinary citizens.

A number of MCAs including Deputy Speaker Steve Munene also opposed the idea, warning that if the hospital was made semi-autonomous, the county administration would not be able to control the prices of public medical services it offered.

The MCAs said the plan also threatened the Government's free maternity services.

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