Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta on Tuesday launched the construction of the Kenya National Referral and Research Hospital (KNRRH), a top-tier military health facility at the Kabete Military Barracks.
The Level Six Referral Hospital is the latest move by the government to improve the welfare of members of the disciplined forces.
The construction of the 700-bed facility is planned for completion in three years to provide specialised services to the security sector agencies and the general public.
Those targeted are officers in the National Youth Service officers, National Intelligence Service, Kenya Wildlife Service, National Police Service, Kenya Defence Forces, Kenya Forest Service and their families.
The ultra-modern hospital will feature a cancer diagnostics and treatment centre, 14 operating theatres, VIP wings, intensive care and high dependency units, an infectious diseases unit and other highly specialised units.
The President, who was accompanied by Defence, Interior, Treasury and Health cabinet secretaries, Chief of Defence Forces General Robert Kibochi, Attorney General Kihara Kariuki, Inspector General of Police Hilary Mutyambai and all other formations heads, said the hospital will be built through a partnership with the government of China and will be the first of its kind after the Armed Forces Memorial Hospital that was constructed in the early 1970s.
The construction of the hospital puts an end to earlier plans to construct a National Police Service referral hospital near the Inland Container Depot (ICD), which had been identified for the construction of the facility a few years ago.