Three plastic surgeons have moved to court to stop the Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentists’ Board from licensing foreigners.
Under the Kenya Society for Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, they also want the court to restrain all private medical facilities, particularly Columbia Africa Health Care and the Aga Khan University Hospital, from employing Dr Tilman Stasch — a German national intending to work in Kenya as a plastic surgeon.
The petitioners said Colombia Health Care is a plastic and reconstructive surgery facility and the German doctor has been employed to work there, and Aga Khan Hospital has also hired him to consult and attend to their in- and outpatients.
The intended licensing of Stasch by the KMPDB and being employed by Colombia Africa Health Care and Aga Khan University are discriminatory to the practicing surgeons and students studying plastic surgery, they said.
They also allege Stasch has been seeking a work permit from the Immigration office and the board to practice in Kenya.
“The intended licensing of Dr Stasch by KMPDB on account of misrepresentation or false experience infringe on the medical health stakeholders’ consumer rights by making him appear more qualified because of his skin colour,” their petition reads.
They said they have been in existence for the past 12 years, championing the the collective interests of the locally trained medical practitioners and are already qualified and practising plastic surgeons — either through government employment or as private practitioners.
Kenya has about 11 medical training institutions at different levels of training and it is their responsibility to create and preserve job opportunities to raise genuine incomes for the local plastic surgeons, they said.