Why doctors’ union portends better healthcare

Here is a simple fact that illustrates the parlous state of Kenya’s health sector. Every year, about 400 doctors graduate from Kenya’s medical schools. Nearly the same numbers of doctors resign from public service into the private sector or ship out overseas.

In the face of a growing population, this then means that the number of doctors per fixed group of citizens is going down. It means that many Kenyans, especially in rural areas, remain without access to proper healthcare.

This unfortunate state of affairs illustrates why the nation is far from achieving the Millennium Development Goals.

We can hold weekly workshops in five star hotels to discuss how to achieve these goals but as long as the doctor, who is the captain of the healthcare sector, remains disillusioned, frustrated, harassed and oppressed, these workshops will be no better than talking shops.

A doctor’s life includes working during weekends and holidays. It is about waking up at 3 a.m. to attend to critical emergencies.

It is about working for 36 hours non-stop without the luxury of sleep until one collapses out of exhaustion after which the phone starts ringing again because there are three new emergencies to attend to.

Free hours

It is about choosing between sleep and food when one has two free hours. A doctor’s life is about working for over 90 hours in a week. All Kenyans deserve access to quality healthcare. A Kenyan living in Moyale should receive the same care as the one living in Kiambu.

Doctors who are posted to hardship areas must be given incentive to serve Kenyans in these regions. The ministry of Health (now Medical Services) has been executing a policy of isolation, intimidation and aggression towards doctors for ages.

In fact, doctors are posted to hardship areas as a form of punishment or out of sheer malice by some ministry officials who take a haughty and condescending view of professionals at the frontline of service delivery in healthcare.

The clouds overhead the health sector are quickly forming. These are billows of hope for the stakeholders in the health sector, especially the oppressed work force.

Kenyan doctors, buoyed by the new Constitution, are regrouping in their quest to form a union.

The Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists, and Dentists Union (KMPDU) is a timely intervention to save the country from the ignominy of a collapsed health sector. KMPDU is set to provide a forum for Kenyan doctors to speak the truth boldly and frankly.

Huge disservice

One such truth is that Kenya is far from achieving the recommended WHO doctor-to-patient ratio of 1:1,000. This is a huge disservice to the Kenyan people. The journey to better healthcare starts with a motivated work force.

The fight against disease is as crucial as the fight against terrorism, perhaps even more crucial.

Healthcare is the heartbeat of the nation. If we were to wake up one morning to a nation without a single doctor, we would all be very scared.

We would be totally defenceless in the crucial war against disease. In fact the situation in which our nation would find itself would be no different from that of a country at war.

We appeal to the people of Kenya to join hands with doctors in bringing back sense to healthcare. We look forward to a time when patients will be given VIP treatment in our public hospitals; when healthcare will be affordable and accessible.

A time when it will make no difference for a mother who chooses to deliver in Nairobi Hospital or in Nguni Health Centre in Mwingi; when specialists will move out of referral centres in Nairobi to the banks of river Ewaso Nyiro because they are motivated.

We look forward to a time when the government will sponsor doctors to undertake post-graduate studies in various hospitals in all the counties under supervision of professors. This is the Kenya we want. Decentralisation of expertise, motivated workers, well equipped hospitals, constant dialogue between the ministry and the doctors and the restoration of dignity and basic human rights for the Kenyan doctor.

Dr Chitayi and Dr Mwachi are members of the Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists, and Dentists Union national steering committee