A tussle between the county government and a local church over the ownership of St Luke’s Mission Hospital Kaloleni threatens to derail a Sh75 million plan to rehabilitate the derelict facility, which shut down in 2016 after running into financial headwinds.
The Anglican Church of Kenya (ACK) insists that it still owns the hospital despite claims by the devolved unit to have officially taken over the facility and allocated money to upgrade it in its Sh18.8 billion 2023/2024 supplementary budget, which was recently approved by the county assembly.
Recently, the head of the Governor’s Delivery Unit, Mr Fikirini Jacobs, announced that the Kenya Medical Training College campus in Kilifi was ready to revive a nursing school that was being hosted at the hospital.
But in an exclusive interview with Natio n, Bishop Alphonse Baya of the ACK Mombasa Diocese countered that the church had renewed its lease agreement with the county government during the tenure of former Governor Amason Kingi, who is now the Senate Speaker.
“We have not released the hospital to the County Government of Kilifi. We had agreed with Governor [Gideon] Mung’aro that the county government would only be allowed to conduct any development activities through a community social responsibility framework or a public-private partnership deal,” said the cleric.
The church’s agreement with Governor Mung’aro, Bishop Baya went on to say, precluded any investment in infrastructure “because [the hospital] is a private institution. But we can partner with them in terms of products and services.”
The Bishop said Governor Mung’aro had admitted to him that the county government could not use public funds to develop the hospital as it would raise audit queries, but would help the church find donors to fund expansion plans.“We are open for dialogue on how best we can offer quality medical services and healthcare to the community. You cannot take advantage of someone’s challenges because of your political power,” he said.
In November 2022, speaking at the opening of the Environment and Land Court’s 10th anniversary conference at Pwani University, Mr Mung’aro insisted that the land upon which the hospital sits belonged to the county government.
He said the devolved unit came to learn about the status of the hospital’s land during a public engagement forum hosted by Environment and Land Court judges in Kaloleni, which was chaired by Justice Millicent Odeny. He said the church had no option but to surrender the hospital to the county government.
St Luke’s Mission Hospital Kaloleni was built by members of the Church Missionary Society, who are based in the UK, in 1927. It remained under the ownership of the missionaries until 1983 when the ACK took over.
