Why many Kenyans must be sick of the sight of Mailu

Health Cabinet Secretary Cleopa Mailu at Afya House, the department's headquarters, in Nairobi on December 7, 2016. PHOTO | FILE | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • The 2016/17 doctors’ strike, which has seen some public hospitals discharge patients from the wards, has already stamped an indelible blood mark on the President's legacy.
  • The chest-thumping aside, the chiefs of the counties know they don’t have much to bring to the negotiating table.

A reader reacting to my recent column on the public health crisis took issue with my criticism of President Uhuru Kenyatta, saying I was out to tarnish the good name of the President and his Jubilee government.

Nothing can be farther from the truth. A President who allows a shutdown of health services for his nation’s poor to last for 40 days surely doesn’t need anyone, including me, to tarnish his name for him.

The 2016/17 doctors’ strike, which has seen some public hospitals discharge patients from the wards or slam the door on new ones, has already stamped an indelible blood mark on his legacy.

But the reader raised an important point about the role of the Health Cabinet Secretary and other relevant government officials in the matter.

“Let me remind you Mr Otieno, the President has an able CS and a host of other technocrats who are dealing with the matter day and night, or did you want the President to sit in the negotiating table with the union as the chairman?”

Well, that is why I thought Mr Kenyatta should have taken leadership of the negotiations with the health workers at that stage in the first place. He appeared to do so when he hosted the doctors’ union officials at State House, Mombasa, on January 4, raising public expectations that a solution to the strike would finally be found. It turns out the State House meeting was just a New Year PR stunt meant to peddle false hope.

CHEST-THUMPING SIDE

The reason we are back to a deadlock is that the matter is still very much in the hands of Health Cabinet Secretary Cleopa Mailu, the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) and the county governors.

And this can only be grim news. The chest-thumping aside, the chiefs of the counties know they don’t have much to bring to the negotiating table.

The insistence on a role for the SRC is even more curious. Although a creation of the 2010 Constitution, the Sarah Serem-led commission has struggled to justify the handsome wages it collects every month. The debate about its mandate over public officials isn’t even settled. Worse, the SRC’s past interventions in labour disputes have generated more heat than light.

The weakest link in the negotiations has to be the Health Cabinet Secretary. With due respect to my aggrieved reader, it sounds particularly offensive to use the word “able” and Dr Mailu in the same sentence.

For all his impressive CV managing a hospital for the rich for many years, Dr Mailu’s performance at the public health docket is underwhelming.

A year into the job, there is little to suggest that the public health system is getting more efficient. After 40 days of the doctors’ strike, many Kenyans must be sick of the sight of the dispassionate minister coming out to give one negative update after another on national television.

Writer is chief sub-editor, Business Daily. [email protected]. @otienootieno