Hospital tussle affecting service delivery

Rev Dr Bill Charles Fryda (centre) celebrates with other staff after they managed to stop Assumption Sisters from taking over St Mary’s Hospital on January 5, 2018. [Photo: Kipsang Joseph/Standard]

There is more to the growing saga of the Assumption Sisters and Dr Bill Charles Fryda over the management of the St Mary’s Hospital, both in Nairobi and Gilgil, than meets the eye. On December 28, 2017, patients and the staff at St Marys Hospital in Langata were in for a rude shock when auctioneers and the police, on behalf on the Assumption Sisters, visited the hospital at around 5am to forcibly take control after the sisters won a court case against Dr Fryda.

Patients, doctors and nurses reported cases of harassment, with some staff members claiming they had been evicted from their quarters even as the new occupants denied the claims. The battle for the control of the hospital has been extended to Gilgil where not only was a vehicle burnt down, hospital property has been vandalised during the scuffles and patients have been abandoned as uncertainty pervades.