Drama ensued at the Nakuru War Memorial Hospital on Friday as goons raided the medical facility as the row between the institution's management and the Nakuru County Government escalated.
At the heart of the tiff is the decision by the Nakuru County Government to forcibly take over management of the hospital on Friday, October 27 over a land dispute.
The Nakuru County Government claims that the hospital management forged an extension of the 100-year lease that the medical facility sits on which allegedly expired in April 2021.
As such, the Nakuru County government forcibly took over the management of the hospital on October 27, 2023.
For one week, the hospital staff had been blocked from accessing the facility.
During this window, patients were transferred to other hospitals while the medical facility remained closed.
However, the Environment and Land Court sitting in Nakuru issued orders allowing the hospital staffers to resume operations pending the hearing and determination of the case.
According to hospital staff, events turned ugly on Friday, November 3 after goons raided the medical facility and started attacking them.
“We have been waiting to get back to work, and we even waited for the OCPD as we were directed by the lawyers, but all of a sudden, people drove in and started lobbying teargas,” one of the staff members told journalists.
According to multiple accounts by hospital staffers, the goons roughed them up and asked them to get out of the hospital.
The gang reportedly drove into the facility using county askari vehicles, dressed in civilian clothes with some wearing masks.
It was after this that the gang members started wreaking havoc at the medical facility including lobbing tear gas canisters in the hospital compound.
They, however, did not hurl tear gas canisters inside the facility.
