Hiring of Tanzania doctors for county hospitals starts

A doctor attends to a patient at the Nakuru Level 5 Hospital on March 15, 2017. Doctors have argued against hiring foreigners saying there are trained medics in the country who are unemployed. FILE PHOTO | SULEIMAN MBATIAH | NMG 

By STELLAR MURUMBA

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Summary

• About 400 of the targeted 500 Tanzanian doctors had by Thursday applied for Kenyan jobs.
• There are 20 doctors for every 100,000 Kenyans compared to Tanzania’s 3:100,000 ration.
• This comes even as the Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentists Union (KMPDU) maintains that 200 Kenyan doctors are unemployed.

The Health ministry has started the process of posting Tanzanian doctors to counties after asking  governors to state vacancies in  public hospitals.

Health secretary Cleopa Mailu has asked the Council of Governors (COG), through a memo dated March 21, to state available vacancies within four days in a bid to plug the shortages.

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About 400 of the targeted 500 Tanzanian doctors had by Thursday applied for Kenyan jobs.

All of them are general practitioners and Kenya is looking to Cuba  for specialists. Counties and national referral facilities have been grappling with a chronic shortage of doctors and the move is aimed at solving that problem by offering relief to patients. There are 20 doctors for every 100,000 Kenyans compared to Tanzania’s 3:100,000 ration.

“This is to request each county government to submit their human resource need for medical officers and dentists to facilitate planning,” said Dr Mailu in a memo to CoG chairman Peter Munya.

Dr Mailu said that consultations were ongoing between the two governments regarding recruitment of doctors and dentists to work at both the national and county levels. The Health ministry boss had earlier said that they intend to import another 500 specialist doctors from Cuba to plug the chronic shortage. The foreign medics will be paid in dollars.

This comes even as the Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentists Union (KMPDU) maintains that 200 Kenyan doctors are unemployed. The number is set to reach 1,425 by May when the current cohort of medical interns clear the programme, according to KMPDU. Kenya has a total of 11,142 active doctors including foreigners on temporary licences.

They includes medical doctors, dentists and other specialists. KMPDU has been fighting for an increase of specialist doctors to 1,200 annually through training, a major highlight during their 100-day strike — which caused pain and even deaths of poor Kenyans.