Doctor wants NGO to take over St Mary's Mission Hospital

A doctor has proposed that the low cost St Mary's Mission Hospital be entrusted to a non-profit organisation.

Dr William Charles Fryda, an American missionary who founded the hospital, told Lands court judge Sila Munyao in Nakuru that he would like to see the hospital managed by an NGO to enable them attain their objective of serving the community.

The hospital has been the subject of a five-year ownership dispute between Fryda and a local nuns' order, Assumption Sisters of Nairobi (ASN).

"With respect to the sisters, I wish them well but enough is enough. They have nothing to claim in St Mary's Hospital and they cannot manage this kind of a hospital model," Fryda concluded during the hearing of the suit.

The haematologist, a graduate of Baylor University in Texas, US, told the court that he established the hospital to cater for the vulnerable in the society using his own money and with assistance from donors in the US.

The doctor, who has practised for 41 years, said that he enlisted the trusteeship of the sisters' to four parcels of land; two on which St Mary's Hospital in Elementaita in Nakuru stands and the other in Langata in Nairobi, as he had no legal entity to register the property.

"The initial agreement was that the hospital would later be transferred to a new company, St Mary's Mission Hospital, an outfit limited by guarantee once fully incorporated," explained Fryda last Friday.

The sisters then led by Mother Superior Sister Maria Felix Mwikali, according to him, were gracious and helped him acquire the parcels of land. He said he purchased the land using donor money channelled to him through US-based Maryknoll fathers' and Brothers.

"I trusted the sisters for a long time with small things and later with big things. We shared common ideas with Sister Mwikali," he said.

According to him, the ownership dispute started after the sisters declined to allow the process of transfer of the titles.

The hearing continues on March 15.