Medics want health included in Ruto, Raila talks
Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union Secretary General Davji Atellah addresses the media in January. The union has demanded the inclusion of health in the planned bi-partisan talks.
Health workers, through their union leaders, are demanding that the challenges facing the sector be included in the bi-partisan talks between the government and the opposition.
In a press briefing yesterday, the Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentists Union (KMPDU) and its clinical officers counterparts said health care cannot be separated from the high cost of living.
KMPDU Secretary-General Davji Atellah said separating health from the talks would mean sidelining the already broken Universal Health Coverage (UHC) plans.
“Despite the noble intentions and promises, it has become crystal clear that Kenya’s UHC dream remains a distant aspiration plagued by systemic challenges that make it unattainable in the near future,” he said.
“We know that many Kenyans are unable to pay their hospital bills because of the high cost of living. This should have been mitigated by UHC if it had worked,” he added.
The unionists also accused the government of failing to deliver on the Kenya Kwanza manifesto promise to employ 20,000 doctors.
“It is paradoxical that with an acute shortage of doctors in public hospitals, Kenya seems to have adopted a policy of train and dump. There is a severe shortage of medical officers, pharmacists and dentists in public hospitals and our members are forced to work long hours without annual leave,” said Dr Atellah.
Kenya Union of Clinical Officers (Kuco) chairperson Peterson Wachira added that the devolution conference was glittering with progress in the health sector on paper, but this was out of touch with reality.
“The success stories told at the devolution conference in Eldoret last week are astounding. As people on the ground and witnesses to what is happening in the health system at county level, we wonder if what was said is really the true picture,” he said.
Mr Wachira said the country was backsliding on key issues discussed in 2013 when devolution of health was a fledgling idea. According to him, a decade later, five goals set at the World Health Organization’s Global Forum on Human Resources for Health in Recife, Brazil, have largely been sidelined.
Kenya committed to a national and county level Human Resource for Health Inter-Ministerial Coordinating Committee, annual recruitment of health workers capped at 12,000, involvement of community health workers, budgeting beyond salaries to motivate health workers, and active public-private partnerships.
Of the five targets, Mr Wachira said that only the public-private partnerships have been met and now, with the new government, the community health workers’ involvement. But he added that the community health workers cannot work without the support of key health workers such as doctors, clinical officers and nurses.
“We will have educated people on different health conditions through community health promoters, but when they get to the hospital, there is no one to attend to them and if there is someone, they may not get medical equipment,” he said.
“So what we are saying is that we need to combine the employment of community health promoters and health workers so that when they get to the hospital, they get the services they need,” he added.
Kuco Secretary-General George Gibore said it was time for the government to implement its ideas.
“The government keeps launching things and flagging things (and even our nurses) but we don’t have enough capacity in our country,” he said.
The unionists said some counties such as Busia, Kakamega, Embu and Nakuru were sacking doctors in a humiliating manner.
Dr Atellah said if their demands are not met, health workers would stage peaceful protests on September 12 to remind the government of their plight.
