•Dr Ambuka said most county hospitals operate without doctors, which hurts the quality of services.
• Governor Jonathan Bii has agreed to hire extra doctors starting this year.
Image: File
A medics union wants North Rift governors to budget for the hiring of more doctors to improve healthcare services in the region.
Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentists Union North Rift chairman Dr Darwin Ambuka said although the national government last week started deploying 800 doctor interns there was still a shortage of doctors in all counties.
Dr Ambuka said most county hospitals operate without doctors, which hurts the quality of services.
He also wants counties to hire doctors on permanent terms and not contracts.
“Some of the counties have been hiring medics on contract terms which we think is not good. Doctors should be put on permanent terms so they work while assured of their job security,” the chairman said.
Dr Ambuka said they want counties to address challenges affecting the healthcare system with a commitment to help Kenyans access quality services.
The union official said Uasin Gishu has 30 doctors handling a population of more than 1.2 million people. This, he said, is far below the recommended WHO standards.
Governor Jonathan Bii has agreed to hire extra doctors starting this year.
Dr Ambuka said the union welcomed the government's plan to deploy 800 intern doctors but noted that an acute shortage of doctors would still persist in the counties.
“We are urging counties to also consider hiring more doctors because we have serious shortages in all health facilities,” he said.
KMPDU has faulted counties like Turkana for advertising to employ doctors on contract.
Dr Ambuka, who also met with Health CS Susan Wafula, said the shortage of doctors was adversely affecting medical services in the region.
The country has more than 5,000 unemployed doctors and Dr Ambuka said they want President William Ruto’s administration to prioritise healthcare and ensure all hospitals have the capacity to serve Kenyans effectively.
They said West Pokot county, for example, has 38 doctors serving a population of more than 621,000 people, meaning the doctor-population ratio is 1:17,000, way below WHO's standard of 1:1,000.
“The deficit cuts across all counties in the region and the figures are shocking and unacceptable. We therefore need to absorb all trained doctors in the country and train more,” Dr Ambuka said.
He said the country is struggling with one of the highest maternal mortality rates at 342 per 10,000 which KMPDU says is far above the recommended rate of as per UN SDGs of 70 to 100,000 live births.
The KMPDU officials argue that most of the challenges in the health sector are as a result of poor policies, priorities and underfunding.
Kenya, they said, is a signatory to the Abuja Declaration of 2001 where 189 heads of state pledged to allocate at least 15 per cent of their annual budgets to healthcare.
Dr Ambuka said while nations like Rwanda has implemented the declaration, Kenya is still at about 5 per cent.
KMPDU said it was not possible for the country to achieve UHC without the provision of adequate resources to the health sector.