http://www.nationmedia.com/dailynation/nmgcontententry.asp?category_id=1&newsid=52287
The Nation
2 July 2005
Story by NATION Correspondent
Publication Date: 7/2/2005
Nairobi's Aga Khan yesterday became a premier teaching and referral hospital when it formally came under the management of Aga Khan University (AKU).
Plans for the new development include programmes aimed at managing major diseases such as heart complications and cancer.
This will save Kenyan patients the expense and trouble of overseas trips for treatment.
Established in 1958 and currently with a 254-bed capacity, the hospital had been operating under the Aga Khan Health Service Kenya.
The decision to upgrade it was taken by the AKU chancellor, His Highness the Aga Khan, in consultation with the university board of trustees.
Now renamed Aga Khan University Hospital (AKUH) Nairobi, and registered and licensed by the Medical Practitioners and Dentists Board of Kenya, it will be the university's principal health science teaching facility in East Africa.
The university is focusing on high-quality healthcare, research and post-graduate courses medicine, surgery, radiology, pathology, anaesthesia, obstetrics-gynaecology and paediatrics.
Said the chairman of Aga Khan Health Service Kenya, Mr Azim Virjee: "The transition to a university hospital will make quality healthcare more accessible to a broader cross-section of the local population".
"The University has done this at Aga Khan University Hospital in Karachi, Pakistan, by mobilising funds in support of a patient welfare programme, and expects to do the same in East Africa.