• Human Rights Watch claims in a report that the government failed to fulfil its pledge to support health workers fighting Covid-19, exposing them to avoidable risks.
• The lobby says the government failed to adequately give medics protective equipment, testing, and other safety measures.
Image: WILFRED NYANGARESI
Doctors and nurses responding to Covid-19 continue to work with limited PPE and less support, exposing them to risk of infection and trauma, a report by an international lobby indicates.
Human Rights Watch claims in a report published on Thursday that the government failed to fulfil its pledge to support health workers fighting Covid-19, exposing them to avoidable risks of trauma, infection and even death.
Kenya has recorded over 250,000 cases of the virus infection and over 5,000 deaths.
“The government’s haphazard, uncoordinated response has affected the welfare of thousands of health workers, and hindered Kenya’s ability to provide timely and quality healthcare during the pandemic,” the report reads.
The lobby says the government failed to adequately give medics protective equipment, testing, and other safety measures despite significant resources being dedicated to the pandemic response in Kenya.
Citing a parliamentary investigation that found that up to Sh7.8 billion meant for Covid-19 response was lost through dubious tendering, the lobby declares the country’s pandemic response a sham.
Otsieno Namwaya, the lobby’s director for East Africa, said the negligence by the government was unacceptable.
“Kenya’s negligence regarding the safety and needs of health workers in the middle of a pandemic is completely unacceptable,” he said
“Kenyan authorities should take urgent steps to ensure health workers on the front lines of the fight against Covid-19 are able to work in an environment that would not put them at unnecessarily heightened risk.”
Kenya has 58,000 registered nurses, 12,000 registered doctors, and 14,000 clinical officers.
The lobby says it generated its report after interviewing 28 government health workers and officials, including 14 nurses, seven doctors, three clinical officers, three laboratory technicians, and a health ministry administrator, between March and July this year.
Six of the 14 nurses were nurses’ trade union officials, two of the seven doctors were union officials, and one was an official of the Kenya Medical Association, it said.
“We also reviewed government documents, reports, records, and newspaper articles.”
The report says that the health workers claimed that at first, they did not have any personal protective equipment– masks, gloves, or overalls/gowns, but when they finally received them, they were either not enough or were of poor quality.
“They said they did not receive training before being assigned to wards treating Covid-19 patients, greatly undermining their ability to respond in the early days of the pandemic. Fearing for their lives, some health workers said that they would sometimes panic and run away when they encountered people in the hospital with Covid-19-related symptoms.”
It says that while the state had established numerous testing centres, it did not ensure an adequate supply of testing reagents and kits.
The report also shows that all health workers interviewed claimed that the authorities did not compensate them for prolonged periods at work, including extended work hours and days.
"They said that during the first four months of the pandemic, nurses were locked in isolation wards with patients for two weeks, then went into quarantine for another two weeks before they could rejoin their families. They said that since July 2020, nurses remained in the wards for just one week, and then they can return home without quarantining."
Edited by A.N