Doctors want counties to surrender Level 5 hospitals

The doctors’ union, in a proposal presented to the Senate, wants Level 5 hospitals handed back to the national government.

The union also wants counties barred from spending any money allocated to hospitals as well as creation of a health service commission to oversee human resource needs of doctors.

POLITICAL

Dr Ouma Oluga, the secretary-general of the Kenya Medical Practitioners Pharmacists and Dentists Union (KMPDU), said they want hospitals to spend the money they collect monthly to run hospital affairs. This is currently not allowed in the financial act that guides county expenditure.

Citing Kakamega Referral Hospital as an example, Dr Oluga said: “The hospital collects Sh16 million a month, but the money is not available when asked to employ 20 more doctors at a cost of Sh4 million a month because the county used it on other things such as trips and building roads as people die.”

These hospitals, which are expected to serve about a million people, have a conditional grant given to them by the government on top of the money they collect, and what is allocated to them.

Since devolution, there has been more than 80 boycotts across the country arising from the strained relationships between counties and healthcare workers. The union proposes a health commission that would handle all human resource issues for healthcare staff.

Coincidentally, the suggestions are coming when a study by Kenya Medical Research Institute-Wellcome Trust found that counties’ decisions on health — from budgets to who is hired — are political and based on emotions.

Dr Andrew Mulwa, the Makueni health executive, supported the union’s suggestion that seeks to bar devolved units from spending funds meant for hospitals on other projects.

AUTHORITY

However, Dr Mulwa said, returning county referral hospitals to the national government would have to be done within the confines of the Constitution, and that could only be done through a referendum.

But he noted that counties were at liberty to hand over their Level 5 facilities to the national government.

“Nyeri handed Othaya Hospital to the national government,” Dr Mulwa, who is also the chairman of county health executives, said.

Ms Sarah Omache, the Kisii health executive, told the Nation that returning the Level 5 hospitals to the national government was akin to fighting devolution.

The proposal is also seeking to create a referral authority to manage the national referral hospitals.

KMPDU argues that national referral hospitals, such as the spinal injury hospital, are too small to exist as parastatals on their own, as do Kenyatta and Mathari. They are currently managed by boards that are appointed politically, which then manage the hospitals as such.

Dr Oluga said: “What if there was an authority that would lobby for budgetary allocation for these hospitals, weighting the strength of each hospital, and say, get the many orthopaedic patients awaiting surgeries in Kenyatta to Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital that has space?”