Don’t apply for nursing certificate courses, Kenyans warned

The Kenya Progressive Nurses Association has warned that the recently advertised Kenya Medical Training Colleges nursing certificate courses are outdated.

“We are advising Kenyans not to apply for the courses as they have not been accredited by the Nursing Council. Certificate training was stopped,” Thaddeus Mayaka, national chairman of the association said in a press conference on Thursday.

He was referring to adverts that ran in the local dailies on Monday and Wednesday, in which the training institution announced intake for certificate nursing training in their Kabarnet, Lodwar, Kapenguria, Kitui, Oloitoktok, Bomet, Msambweni and Kilifi campuses.

“As a professional body and a key stakeholder in nurses’ welfare, we wish to protest in the strongest terms possible the introduction of certificate training through the back door,” he said.

Mr Mayaka said the association would not sit back and watch the profession being watered down by a few individuals and institutions that have no regard for the norms that define nursing standards.

The association wants the Nursing Council to rein in the institution or face legal action.

“We have already stated our position to the Ministry of Health that the minimum entry point for nursing shall be a diploma,” said Mr Mayaka.

The East African nurses that seeks harmonisation in the profession has given Kenya a grace period of up to 2017 to wind up certificate training of nurses.

“The nursing council, whose obligation it is to regulate and accredit institutions for nursing, should not leave the medical training college to self-police,” he said.