Curb health staff crisis

Kenyan health workers, especially nurses and doctors, are in high demand overseas. The key destinations include the United Kingdom and the Middle East. But it comes at a huge cost to the country, which has spent time and resources training the health workers.

According to available statistics, there are only 14 doctors for every 10,000 Kenyans. Therefore, letting the medics go abroad in search of greener pastures is a huge loss to the country.

The shortage of nurses is already being acutely felt in the public hospitals. There is understaffing, especially in the health centres and the public hospitals countrywide. The height of irony, though, is that there are thousands of qualified but unemployed nurses in the country. Some of them thus opt to relocate overseas.

As health is a devolved function, governors are opposed to allowing nurses to be sent overseas, citing staff shortages in the public hospitals. But the National Nurses Association of Kenya (Nnak) has dismissed this as an “artificial shortage”, accusing the counties of failing to employ nurses and other health personnel.

With the generally poor and uncompetitive employment terms, stopping the emigration is a tall order. Attractive terms should be provided in order to retain the qualified health workers trained at a huge cost to the taxpayers.

Indeed, the healthcare sector is on the brink of a crisis. Whereas one nurse takes care of 40 patients, the World Health Organisation recommends a ratio of 25 nurses for 10,000 people. Poor employment terms, lack of equipment and other facilities encourage health professionals to look for jobs abroad. Last month, the government announced it would send 2,500 nurses to Saudi Arabia and there is a pact to dispatch another 200,000 to the UK.

It is in the interest of the 50 million Kenyans for the authorities to come up with policies to discourage emigration and boost the retention of quality professionals in public health facilities.