Health secretary Cleopa Mailu: Nobody else but the KMPDB has the mandate to lift the ban. PHOTO | FILE
By STELLAR MURUMBA, smurumbah@ke.nationmedia.com
In Summary
- Health PS Nicholas Muraguri last month overruled the Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentists Board’s (KMPDB) suspension of the camps and allowed select private facilities to operate despite the ban.
- Health secretary Cleopa Mailu said the ban was still on as directed by the board and not even his office can lift it.
Health secretary Cleopa Mailu has clashed with
principal secretary Nicholas Muraguri over the latter’s recent decision
to allow certain foreign medical personnel to hold treatment camps in
Kenya despite a ban imposed by sector regulator.
Dr Muraguri last month overruled the Kenya Medical
Practitioners and Dentists Board’s (KMPDB) suspension of the camps and
allowed select private facilities to operate despite the ban.
Dr Mailu said the ban was still on as directed by the board and not even his office can lift it.
“Nobody else but the KMPDB has the mandate to lift the ban,” he said.
The minister’s directive came after several
private hospitals defied the rule and held medical camps (clinics) with
the help of doctors from India and Mauritius barely a month after the
KMPDB ban.
Nairobi Women’s Hospital, MP Shah and Kijabe
Mission Hospital are among the institutions that have reportedly defied
the ban and held the camps.
Nairobi Women’s Hospital, which is on the spot for
conducting a one- week spine clinic at their Adams Arcade branch in
Nairobi, said that it had permission from the PS.
The hospital’s chief executive, Sam Thenya, said it
always got licenses from the medical board whenever foreign medics came
for clinics at their facilities, but failed to prove if indeed they
got one for the June spine clinic.
The hospital ostensibly relied on a letter that the
PS wrote to Dr Thenya granting a “temporary waiver of medical camps
suspension” to the hospital. Outpatient consultations during the camp
cost Sh1,500.
The law requires that any foreign medic practising
in Kenya, regardless of the duration, should acquire a licence from
KMPDB - the regulator.
Last month, KMPDB stopped further medical camps by
foreign doctors fearing exploitation of patients and arbitrary referral
of Kenyans to hospitals abroad, especially India.
KMPDB chairman, Prof George Magoha said the
mandate of licensing foreign medics lies with the board, but on
“extraneous circumstances” the ministry can intervene.
“The mandate lies with the board. The ministry may
come in (after all we work for government), but it does not reverse our
stand against the foreign medical camps,” said Prof Magoha.
Dr Muraguri declined to comment on the matter and instead referred us to the board.
The board’s decision was reached at after many
surgical conditions that do not require special operations were referred
to India in return for kickbacks of up to Sh200,000 per referral
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