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The Kenya government is set to start regulating the migration of doctors abroad for work due to a shortage of health workers in the country.
Under the proposed workforce migration policy, Kenyan medics seeking greener pastures abroad will have to obtain special clearance from the government, Sunday Nation reports.
The policy is aimed at regulating the sector to ensure the country’s health system is not “destabilized” by the flight of doctors, according to a leaked Ministry of Health memo dated February 7th.
“Kenya in the recent past has witnessed emigration and migration of the health workforce,” reads the memo signed by Acting Health Director-General Patrick Amoth.
“Many countries continue to seek Kenyan health workers while, on another hand, the country cannot offer employment to all our health worker cadres who graduate from our training institutions.”
Amoth stated that there is a need to have a systematic, coordinated and harmonized health workforce migration process that will ensure the country’s mandate to provide health care is maintained.
The memo recognizes the existence of a taskforce mandated to develop “workforce migration policy as a national priority to guide the health sector on all matters of health workforce labor migration”.
The draft migration policy, which was due for validation at a meeting held on Thursday, could introduce regulations that make it difficult for Kenyan medics to leave the country for work abroad.
In addition, the ministry claims the policy intends to guard against the possible exploitation of healthcare workers by predatory recruitment agencies.
“If not well harnessed, migration has the potential of destabilizing or weakening our health system through various ways, including antecedent brain drain and long-term economic loss on education investments that end up not serving the country’s needs,” Dr Amoth adds.
But the Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentists Union Secretary-General Davji Attellah questioned the move, terming it a “big joke.”
“They are not going to hold doctors accountable for leaving the country because they do not hold them accountable for being unemployed,” Attellah said.
“It is none of their business whether you are employed or not. You will not block them. This is a big joke,” he added.
Attellah cited lack of opportunities for postgraduate training, poor remuneration, bad working conditions and civil unrest as significant reasons for medics leaving the country.
The proposed policy comes in the wake of a report by Nation, which exposed how over 4,000 doctors after suffering after failing to secure employment for as many as five years after graduating from medical school.
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@ Kenya, I read that too.A good number of Cuban doctors were drawing big cash for doing nothing.What a shame. Ifthese were in USA,acountry Kenya likes to ape, the CS for Health would not last a week.
I will not repeat the statistics I quoted on this doctor issue awhile ago.However, it disapoints me very much to read about these doctors going without work for 5 years after being cerrtified.That's a long time to be Idol in such aprofession.I dont understand why they cannot be employed when according to WHO,we are way below the per capita required in the country.Worse, the few that are employed are over worked,and underpaid.And this forces some to spend more time in their private clinic...And the patient mwananchi suffers.Is there any wonder that those who can afford care outside the country take the first flight.
Hungry billionaire Kenyans prefer creating more constituencies for idle MPs/senators and councilors to health workers.The most disturbing is a thug-MCA earning three times more than a doctor.The same peanut salary is delayed for four months.Ruto & Co should leave these gifted guys to try their luck elsewhere.
@ Menya, if it came to avote for more MCAs,or more doctors who do you think would win.Or even better, if we had achoice of firing 40% of doctors,and 40 % of MCAs,which sector would wannachi give their votes...?
@ Kenya, I read that too.A good number of Cuban doctors were drawing big cash for doing nothing.What a shame. Ifthese were in USA,acountry Kenya likes to ape, the CS for Health would not last a week.
I will not repeat the statistics I quoted on this doctor issue awhile ago.However, it disapoints me very much to read about these doctors going without work for 5 years after being cerrtified.That's a long time to be Idol in such aprofession.I dont understand why they cannot be employed when according to WHO,we are way below the per capita required in the country.Worse, the few that are employed are over worked,and underpaid.And this forces some to spend more time in their private clinic...And the patient mwananchi suffers.Is there any wonder that those who can afford care outside the country take the first flight.
Kabwele alienda wapi?
This is an Oximoron by KENYAn government; and Pure RUBBISH!!! from Control freaks👺👺👺👺👺.
Lets see, Amoth and his band of thugs do not care that there are "no jobs" for the said doctors, they just want to block them...chai
Big joke indeed
These guys should be vetted before getting govt jobs.
It would be OK if every graduate had a job and there was a shortage of medical professionals in Kenya.
There are a lot of adjectives I could use, none complementary, to vet my anger and astonishment re your pronouncements. But I will spare you this time.
What the government needs to do is flag unnecessary foreign shopping trips by "waheshimiwas" disguised as work-related.
We live in a free society where we seek and compete for the best pay and working conditions wherever it’s possible throughout the world! Enslavement and dictatorship is NOT the answer!!!! We are FREE PEOPLE NOT SLAVES OF THE GOVERNMENT OF THE DAY!!!
They either employ and or reserve the number they must have waiting like 500 and let the rest look for market elsewhere. Not every one wants to leave Kenya anyway.
I read somewhere that there are 4,000 jobless medical doctors in Kenya. Another article said the Cubans doctors who were exported to Kenya do not do anything now.