By: Brian Barasa
Worth Noting:
- “Doctors in the counties facing financial constraints and poor policy implementation suffer most, with their salary delays of upto 3 months”, Says Ombori. Leadership wrangles and policy implementation on health matters has been a major challenge in addressing the medic’s grievances by county governments.
- This has also limited the certain operations of some hospitals in the country due to inadequate facilities. For example of the Nduru sub-county hospital is a level which is missing some services such as the New Born Unit, NBU for children born before nine months and requires special care in such units and the Orthopaedic surgery that Ombori says a level 4 health institutions should have.
The pinch of the doctors’ strike continues to escalate and cause more pain among the innocent Kenyans. County governments were delayed the function of health from the national government under the new Constitution of Kenya 2010.
The battle between county governments and doctors has lasted for years with a number of grievances of doctors going unaddressed. Mr. Dennis Ombori a Psychiatric doctor at the Nduru level 4 hospital in Kisii county says Human resource issues related to doctors, poor doctors working conditions and promotion are the major issues the doctors have been presenting to their employer to address but the county governments have failed.
The situation was evidently worse at the Nduru level 4 hospital no doctors with only sickly patients who are waiting to be treated. The patients who sought treatment went back unattended to, with most of them we spoke to pointing a hand of blame to the county governments for failing to listen to the doctors grievances all this time.
“Doctors in the counties facing financial constraints and poor policy implementation suffer most, with their salary delays of upto 3 months”, Says Ombori. Leadership wrangles and policy implementation on health matters has been a major challenge in addressing the medic’s grievances by county governments. This has also limited the certain operations of some hospitals in the country due to inadequate facilities. For example of the Nduru sub-county hospital is a level which is missing some services such as the New Born Unit, NBU for children born before nine months and requires special care in such units and the Orthopaedic surgery that Ombori says a level 4 health institutions should have.
With devolution the strength of doctors association such as KMPDU has been experiencing challenges in championing for the doctors welfare.” Before devolution, doctors could go on a strike as a country since the health was centralised this could go on a strike as a country but currently it’s rare for doctors to go on strike as a nation hence their issues taken with less concerns with the the relevant county governments”.
The current doctors’ strike has paralyzed health services in all public health institutions in the country with doctors vowing never to up their tools this time round if the county governments do not put into effect the raised concerns. Some Kenyans have suggested that the national government should revert back the health function to address this menace that is claiming the lives of many Kenyans whenever the strike re-occurs. “Other ministries operated by national government such as the ministry of Road and Transport are doing well, Health function is too much for county governments” remarks Mr. Peterson Opala, a Kitere resident, Migori county.
However the medic’s applauds the Non-governmental agencies in shaping and building the image of health in the country. The Psychiatric says that the Nduru hospital has partnered with several NGOs that has helped them with medical supplies that has solved the problem of medication inadequacy during delays of normal supplies from the government. He says for example the Jacaranda NGO partnered with the hospital, supplying them with medical equipment’s as well as the further professional training in various medical fields that he says this has boosted their capacity in service delivery as a level 4 hospital.
I acknowledge the fact the county governments are facing financial problems such as delayed remittance of funds from the national treasury to address this challenges, but the big question is when will the county governments and doctors find the long lasting solution to this issue, when we talk about health we talk about life, should we continue bargaining about the lives of innocent Kenyans each time of strike?.
It’s high time the county governments to stand out and shade light on doctors strike, Kenyans have a right to better access to healthcare, they diligently do their obligations to pay taxes and so do they receive services from the government.
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