• Medics council confident commission would address most of the problems facing sector
• LSK and medics council say BBI health should be retuned to national government
Image: FILE
The Building Bridges Initiative sitting in Nairobi was told that a commission should be established to manage human resource in the health sector.
BBI, popularly referred to as the Handshake team, on Wednesday heard that the proposed Health Service Commission should work in the same way as the Teachers Service Commission.
Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentists Council and the Law Society of Kenya were confident that the commission would address most of the problems that have been facing the sector since the docket was devolved.
The two parties, however, fell short of proposing that the health docket be returned to the national government and indicated that the matter rests with the wishes of Kenyans.
“What Kenyans will recommend to BBI should carry the day,” KMPDC chief officer Daniel Yumbya said when he was asked by BBI vice chairman Adams Oloo on his position on returning health docket to the national government.
TSC manages all human resource matters within the education sector, a matter speakers at the sitting said should be replicated in the health docket.
TSC registers trained teachers, recruits and employs them and assigns them for service in public schools or institutions.
It also promotes and transfer teachers and exercises disciplinary control over them, terminates employment and reviews standards of education. It reviews demand and supply of teachers and advises the national government on matters relating to the profession.
Kenyans have been demanding that the health sector be returned to the national government arguing that it has been engulfed in problems year-round since the onset of devolution. There have been numerous strikes by health workers occasioned by delays in payment of salaries, promotion squabbles, shortage of drugs and medical supplies among other issues.
On Wednesday, Yumbya said the proposed HSC is long overdue and every effort should be made to establish and anchor it in law.
“Health workers should be posted from a central place and counties would be submitting their needs to the commission for consideration,” he added.
LSK council member Herine Kabita said the management of public hospitals has not been as expected "partly because affairs of health workers is not managed from a central point".
“Human resource in the sector should be nationally managed as it is the only way to encourage professionalism. Health workers need to be assessed by people who are qualified to do so,” she explained.
Civil servants also proposed that their human resource functions be also done at the national level.
Union of Kenya Civil Servants said recruitment of public servants should be done centrally by the Public Service Commission. It added that staff development, including training and promotion, should be coordinated by the same body in collaboration with the relevant ministries, departments and county governments.
Yumbya added that there should be continuous employment of doctors, especially specialists who should be sourced abroad as there are very few locally.
“We need to invest in training of specialist and discourage referrals abroad. This should be done by national and county governments."
Edited by R.Wamochie