Karen Hospital in Nairobi is ranked among the best medical institutions countrywide but the story of one of its founders, James Mageria, has not been told nearly enough.
Born in 1941, Mageria rose to prominence first as a police officer before moving to the medical field and co-founding the revolutionary hospital. He had attended Alliance High School.
In a past interview, the late Doctor revealed that he was inspired to venture into the field after growing up in Mt Kenya at a time when people were being killed by Mau Mau and witnessed bloodshed.
"At 14 years, I discovered that life was temporary and what matters is what you do between the day you are born and the day you die; the value you add to others during this time," recounted Mageria.
He joined the workforce by first becoming a police officer in the 1960s and rose up the ranks to the position of officer in charge of crime and investigation.
He later became a trainer in the service and before ascending to serve as a co-chairman of the Police Oversight Board.
"I was a police officer... Now young police officers stop me and say, “mzee leta license” (Old man, show your car license) they don’t know I trained their commissioners when I was at Kenya Police College," he added during a past interview.
He later left the force and joined American Express in Kenya where he rose to become one of the youngest executives at the time.
In 2006, Mageria joined forces with other co-founders of the 102-bed facility Dan and Betty Gikonyo to set up the facility where he would serve as Chairman until his demise. The trio had worked together for 24 years.
“It has been a journey. We have travelled together in the establishment of the Karen Group from the hospital as it is but we worked with him even before the hospital was started for close to 10 years before we came here.
"I would say he was both a personal friend of ours as well as a visionary with us because the three of us took up the vision of developing quality medical services for Kenyans," she noted in her tribute. The plan to set up the hospital had been a discussion among them for long.
Gikonyo, on the other hand, disclosed that Mageria played a pivotal role in Nairobi City's lighting and was among his the first individuas to set up the street lights.
He also worked with the Prison Fellowship International, an group in the USA, and served as the vice president of World Vision in Africa. He was also the founding director of Daystar University.
He passed away in September 2021 after a battle with cancer.
