State told to stem exodus of doctors

Doctors in the South Rift have raised the alarm over the large number of government health workers resigning.

Many of these medics are protesting poor pay and deplorable working conditions.

The Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentists Union’s South Rift Secretary-General Oruko Sitima said thousands had quit since the sector was devolved.

“These are doctors who sacrificed everything to serve their country but the working conditions have become unbearable. They cannot just take it anymore,” Dr Sitima said.

According to Dr Sitima, 100,000 medics left in the 2013/14 financial year, with 74,000 others following last year.

“At the Rift Valley Provincial General Hospital, 10 doctors including two anesthesiologists have resigned in the last six months. The most unfortunate thing is that those leaving are specialists,” he said.

“This will rob hospitals of human resource. We might soon have good hospitals without personnel.”

MEAGRE ALLOCATIONS

Dr Sitima said most doctors had opened private clinics, others had joined private hospitals while some had gone into farming.

“A few lucky one have travelled abroad,” he said.

The union said meagre budgetary allocations to the Health ministry was a threat to services.

Others reasons for the exodus are a poor human resource component and tribalism, the union said.

“Doctors in Nakuru feel that the county government has compromised their welfare. It has to harmonise promotions and cater for their welfare for better services,” he said.

He said the problem had led to career stagnation.

Dr Sitima said doctors in the other counties in the south Rift region faced similar challenges.

“In Kericho, doctors are on a go-slow while in Narok, some allowances have been done away with,” he said.

KMPDU National Chairman Samuel Oroko said if the trend continued, the country could be plunged into health crises never witnessed before.

DECLARATION

Dr Oroko said Kenya had not done enough to save the sector and called for more budgetary allocation as agreed in the Abuja Declaration of April 2001.

The declaration required African countries to allocate at least 15 per cent of their GDP to health.

Of the Sh1.8 trillion budget, health was given Sh51 billion.

This is Sh3.6 billion more of what was allocated to the sector in the 2014/2015 financial year.

Out of this, only Sh3 billion will go towards paying doctors, clinical officers, nurses and interns.

On Friday last week, 150 doctors in Nakuru vowed to continue with their strike after talks with county officials collapsed.

The union said a meeting to resolve the stalemate hit a snag when some of its members were locked out.

Nakuru Deputy Governor Joseph Ruto accused the doctors of making new demands.

He said the county government was open for dialogue with the doctors even after the previous meeting failed to resolve the strike.

The union now feels devolution of health services was done in haste, hurting services.

Dr Oroko called the national government to centralise human resource management and leave management of infrastructure and supplies to the devolved units.

“Unless concerted efforts are made to handle the good human resource component, more doctors will still leave public hospitals,” Dr Oruko added.