KAKAMEGA COUNTY – HOSTILE EMPLOYER TO DOCTORS
One of the issues that a lack of a Health Service Commission has shown about human resources for health management is the unequal treatment of equal professionals across different counties.
Using the treatment of doctors as an example let me highlight some of the challenges that are being experienced:
1. Only in 4 counties, and national government, do doctors enjoy affordable mortgage and affordable credit courtesy of the Governments negotiations. Doctors in these counties with affordable mortgages can indeed concentrate on healthcare service delivery & can afford not to moonlight to enrich banks. As we know the Central Bank of Kenya rates are ridiculously high & the CBK Governor can be said to be colluding with commercial banks to enrich them by impoverishing the Keyans in general, and doctors in particular who had taken out these mortgage & credit facilities before the Kenya Kwanza government took over.
Call to Action: CBK rates must fall to single digits.
2. Secondly in some counties medical consultant doctors are in the original job group that they were in when they first started working, and they were not consultants back then. These consultants are responsible for teaching their medical colleagues who are medical interns, and who on completion of one year medical internship will be in the same job group as the consultants are.
The poster child for this example is Kakamega County Government doctors. These doctors are caught in the middle of a fight between the Governor FCPA Fernandes Barasa OGW and the Kakamega County Public Service Board, a fight that is playing out in court. The effects of this have spilled over to medical internship as the consultants in Kamamega are on strike for unfair treatment. ‘Ndovu wawili wakipigana, nyasi huumia’
3. After a long #OccupyMOH struggle to get deployed, last month medical interns were finally deployed to the various health facilities across the country. They were sent on a ‘termless’ contract pending determination of a case against a SRC circular that was reducing the pay of a medical intern four-fold.
The disparity of HRH management is clearly demonstrated by the difference the interns in Murang’a have been treated and the way the interns in Kakamega are being treated. The medical interns in Murang’a County have already hit the ground running and are on the way to becoming licenced doctors. The forteen medical interns sent to Kakamega were unfortunate to arrive when their consultants were on strike. They are yet to start their internship despite using a lot of money to settle in the town.
This is to urge the Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentist Council to immediately intervene & delist Kakamega County Referral Hospital as an internship Centre and declare @Kakamega_037 a hostile employer to doctors.
This is also to ask the new CS of Health Dr Deborah Barasa to intervene as her first policy challenge, as she considers withdrawing the @MOH_Kenya sweetheart letter to SRC sent by her predecessor.
We also ask the Kenya Health Human Resources Advisory Council (KHHRAC), to at least say something on yhis matter as this falls squarely on its JD.
LET NOT OUR GEN-Z MEDICAL INTERNS SUFFER ANY MORE.
LET US ALSO NOT ALLOW THE DEMEANING OF MEDICAL CONSULTANTS.
#Apsea
#KenyaMedicalAssociation
#KenyaDentaAssociation
#CouncilofGovernors-Kenya
You can read more about this on a related article right here https://simonkigondu.co.ke/human-resources-for-health-medical-consultants-and-internship-in-kakamega-muranga-devolution-of-health/
Dr Kigondu Simon is Consultant Obstetrician Gynaecologist and the President of the Kenya Medical Association