BBI gives us a chance to improve the health sector

Some of the doctors in Embu County, who have threatened to go on strike over poor working conditions, during a meeting in Embu town on September 1, 2020.

Photo credit: George Munene | Nation Media Group

There is a looming strike by doctors and other medics in the country.

There is nothing strange about this because the country is getting accustomed to labour withdrawal by one cadre of medical personnel or another.

If it is not nurses in Nyamira County downing their tools to protest against poor working conditions, then it must be laboratory technicians in Lamu protesting low pay, or pharmacists in Busia lamenting about shortage of gloves or surgeons in Nairobi without scalpels!

These strikes have become more frequent since health was devolved and every county government given full charge over medical staff.

The medics are threatening to go on strike at a time the world is going through a health pandemic. It so bad that over 1,500 Kenyans have died of Covid-19. The deaths may increase when the strike begins.

The medics may seem insensitive to the plight of Kenyans during the country’s most critical hour of need.  

The establishment of the Statutory Health Services Commission to address Health Human Resources as envisaged by the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) Taskforce report provides the much needed hope that our frontline warriors in times of health emergencies will be better protected.

Though devolution of services was, and still is, a good idea, there is little logic why teachers, for instance, should have their human resources needs centralised while doctors and nurses have to contend with the ill-prepared county governments. It is common knowledge that the national government is more likely to have firm control on delicate and essential services than the counties. 

The BBI report recommends a Health (Amendment) Bill, which “seeks to amend the Health Act to establish the Health Services Commission. The commission shall make recommendations to the national government on national policies for management of healthcare workers; monitor implementation of national policies for management of healthcare workers by county governments and recommend appropriate action; and set and regularly review norms and standards on health matters.”  Things can only get better.

But this is only one of the reasons why all Kenyans should support the BBI bill. Before the BBI, there was President Uhuru Kenyatta’s Big Agenda of food security, affordable housing, manufacturing, and affordable healthcare for all. This was, and still is the roadmap towards a better Kenya, but which cannot be achieved without peace and unity.

Peace and unity in Kenya can be described as the fuel which will steer Kenya towards attaining development.   

When there is violence and disunity, everybody suffers.

That is why President Kenyatta reaches out to his political opponents. This has calmed the stormy waters of ethnic and tribal mistrust.  

This is an opportunity all of us to play our part in ensuring that our medical staff and well prepared for a health pandemic, our teachers for educational challenges, our security agencies for external and internal aggression and Kenyans for general prosperity.