Getting health right: The hits and misses of the last five years

BY ALFRED OBENGO

As the second term of President Uhuru Kenyatta’s administration  comes to an end, we have an opportunity to reflect on Kenya’s health sector. 

When I was elected president of the National Nurses Association of Kenya on February 11, 2017, I took over an organisation that was riddled with conflicts, but I quickly embarked on a strategy to rebuild and reclaim our image, which took about a year.

The World Health Organization (WHO) had declared 2020 as the Year of The Nurse and Midwife to draw attention to the critical role that these healthcare workers play in the health of communities and nations, and we had planned elaborate activities to celebrate nurses and midwives.

But the Covid-19 pandemic struck and everything changed. Instead of celebrating nurses, we embarked on nursing the world back to its health. The pandemic coincided with the appointment of Mutahi Kagwe as the Cabinet Secretary of Health. Most of us remember calling him Kagwe wa Corona. 

I was monitoring the global events and I was certain that our people, being the frontline workers, were going to be infected and the most fearful one, we were going to lose some of them in the battlefield. The fear was palpable.

Then came my biggest challenge on how to reach the newly appointed Health CS. A friend of mine who had previously interacted with the CS gave me his contact in confidence. During that time, as a professional association, we were laying out the foundation to execute activities that would cushion our people and other frontline health workers from the adverse effects of the pandemic.

We had practical ideas but lacked the resources to implement. At that time, we had identified our biggest challenge as the provision of Personal Protective Equipment (PPEs). This posed the greatest fear amongst the health workforce.

I took a bold initiative and wrote to Mr Kagwe on what we wanted to execute to complement what the government had already started doing. One afternoon when I was in the office the CS called and said  he was willing to work with us and support the health workforce and Kenyans at large.

It was during that period that I was appointed to the Technical Working Group that provided technical advice to the Covid-19 Fund Board. The Board had been appointed by the President to mobilise resources from the private sector to compliment the government in the fight against the pandemic.

During the pandemic, the CS requested me to join him in dissemination of the Covid-19 updates. We managed to mobilise resources to purchase PPE’s to a tune of half a billion. We also managed to train about 30,000 health workers across the country on Covid-19 case management. 

Ultimately, we established a psychosocial call centre at the Nurses Complex at Kenyatta National Hospital. It was for all health care workers in need of psychosocial support.

Labour and rest within the health sector became a big challenge. Just like the rest of the world, the burden of work was huge given the nature of the pandemic.

The open-door policy the CS had during that period really helped to create an enabling platform both within the ministry and other stakeholders to tackle the deadly pandemic.

After agreeing on a roadmap, the CS appointed Dr Judith Awinja to personally represent his office in the exercise.

Within the spectrum of developing the first-ever nursing and midwifery policy and reviewing the scheme of service, we also developed the first-ever scope of practice for specialised nursing and midwifery workforce. We finalised and launched the nursing and midwifery policy and various specialised scopes of practice, thanks to Mr Kagwe’s leadership.

The scheme of services has also been finalised awaiting some technical input by the Public Service Commission. These documents upon implementation will radically change the face of the nursing profession in our country.

Alfred Obengo is the National Nurses Association of Kenya President Emeritus