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The government has been told to abolish employment caps in counties so enough clinicians can be hired for the effective roll-out of the Universal Health Care.
The Kenya Union of Clinical Officers says there is a shortage of about 10,000 clinicians to effectively roll out UHC.
Kuco chairman Peterson Wachira on Sunday told the Star on the phone that employment ceilings make it impossible to employ enough clinical officers to work in public hospitals.
“We talk about ensuring enough workforce on the ground but our laws are not enabling,” Wachira said.
The union's deputy secretary Austin Oduor said only 6,000 clinical officers out of the registered 21,200 professionals are employed by either the national or county governments.
“Some 5,000 work with private institutions. The remaining ones are not having any formal employment. They are doing locums,” Odour said.
He is also the Global Association of Clinical Officers and Physician Associates president.
He said there is need to have one common name, curriculum and world recognition by the World Health Organization for all clinical officers globally.
Wachira said for UHC to be achieved by 2022 as designed, there should be 16,000 clinical officers in the system by now.
About 24,000 clinical officers should be working in public hospitals by 2022 for UHC to be achieved, he said.
“That means we have a shortage of 10,000 clinical officers as at now,” Wachira said.
But the government and the Kenya Medical Training College said they were working towards achieving the UHC as planned.
Speaking during the 21st annual scientific conference of the Kenya Clinical Officers Association at PrideInn Paradise Hotel in Mombasa, Health Chief Administrative Secretary Rashid Aman said they were aware of the shortage.
Aman said staffing challenges exist across government departments and was not limited to the health sector alone.
He said the ballooning wage bill was to blame but promised the government commitment to getting closer to required standards.
“Our aim is to be able to get to the international standards so we are able to provide optimum health services,” Aman said.
“We have been having discussions with most agencies that regulate these professions and training institutions to see how we can close the gap as we prepare for the national rollout of the UHC.”
Kenya Medical Training College chairman Philip Kaloki said they were training competent health workers to bridge the gap in the workforce.
Some 2,200 clinical officers will graduate by December from the medical colleges, he said.
KCOA president Albert Taiti said UHC is an agenda for the whole of Africa and was as such not only limited to Kenya.
He said the association was determined to bring professionalism to the service so that patients get quality services.
“We cannot be able to achieve this with these laws that actually prohibit staffing of our facilities," Wachira said.
“Because the ministry is the policymaker, we need to rethink whether we actually need the fragmented management of health workforce across the board.”
He said the health workforce should be managed from a central point with direct budgetary allocation from Treasury.
“These challenges that we are having now, whether legal or political, might prevent us from achieving UHC,” Wachira said.
edited by peter obuya
