Two significant hospitals have been built and are ready for use by the Kenya Prisons Service and the National Police Service of Kenya.
The Kenya Defence Forces built the hospitals—National Police Service Hospital and Wanini Kireri Magereza Hospital—in less than two years for a cost of more than Sh4 billion.
The military is prepared to turn over the facilities to the appropriate agencies for usage, according to a meeting of the agencies engaged in the building in Nairobi.
Salome Beacco, the principal secretary of state for correctional services, and Bernice Lemedeket, the principal administrative secretary of the national police service, were separately hosted by defence principal secretary Patrick Mariru to create a roadmap for the intended transfer of the facilities.
Mariru noted that both hospitals were complete, fully equipped, and ready for handover for use by the Kenya Prisons and Kenya Police personnel, their families, and dependents.
“The handover of the health facilities does not mean the end of our collaboration. We shall continue having cross consultations since we are the same government serving a common people,” Mariru said.
Officials from both police and prisons thanked the KDF for their dedication, commitment, and efficiency which enabled them to deliver the projects in record time.
Each of the two-Level IV hospitals has a bed capacity of 150 patients and has imitated the design of the KDF regional Level IV hospitals constructed in Nairobi, Isiolo, Eldoret, and Nakuru.
The facilities have key sections including Intensive Care Unit (ICU), maternity wing, male and female wards, and a helipad for aerial evacuation among others.
Present during the function were the Vice Chief of Defence Forces (VCDF) Lt Gen Jonah Mwangi, Chief of Infrastructure Brig Titus Sokobe, Deputy Inspector General of Administration Police Noor Gabow, and other senior officers from the military, prisons, and the National Police Service.
The completion and handover of the facilities will be a huge relief for the police and prisons and their families at large.
They have been relying on private facilities to treat their patients and in particular those serving personnel.
There are dozens of police and prison officers nursing various wounds in private hospitals in the country.
Most of the victims are the police who have suffered injuries in various terror related attacks in areas near the Kenya-Somalia border.
The police have another hospital based in Kanyanyoo, Kitui County that also deals with cases of officers injured in forward operating bases.
This was built using savings from police officers. President William Ruto opened the facility early this year.
Equipping the facilities has been a major challenge due to lack of funding.
A total of 67 police officers have been posted to the newly constructed Level 4 National Police Service Referral Hospital along Raila Odinga Road near Kenyatta National Hospital in Nairobi.
The move by police and prison departments to construct their hospitals came months after former president Uhuru Kenyatta presided over the construction of the Kenya Research and Referral Hospital at Kabete Barracks in Nairobi.
The hospital is set to be a centre of excellence in medical care for all security agencies in Kenya, offering comprehensive treatment and acting as a referral facility for regional hospitals.
According to the military, it will also be a medical research facility.
It will have an oncology department, an outpatient unit, an emergency unit with 15 operating theatres and an inpatient unit with 11 floors and 700 beds.
Chinese company China Wu Yi is constructing the facility on four-acre land.
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