Cabinet Secretary for Health, Aden Duale, has promised to end corruption in the Ministry of Health to prevent irregularities in nursing internship allocations.
He spoke during the official handover of posting letters to
intern nurses who were wrongfully omitted from the interns' posting list after
corrective measures were taken to address anomalies identified in the initial
posting of 2,098 interns across the country.
“Corruption in our
institution is what has led to the illegal and wrongful omission of rightful
interns,” Duale said.
“I am going to decisively and intentionally root out
corruption, starting from the Ministry of Health to the Nursing Council of
Kenya.”
“Reforms in the Nursing Council will be a top priority,
starting with the suspension of the Nursing Council Chief Executive Officer. I
will reform the Human Resource Department at the Ministry of Health and,
lastly, digitize the internship process to ensure compliance in future,” he
added.
Going forward, the CS assured that only qualified students
will be issued with internship letters after graduation. He reiterated that
having a completion letter does not amount to graduation.
The newly appointed Chairman of the Nursing Council of
Kenya, Dr. Dabar Abdi Maalim, emphasized that they were determined to ensure
that the directives of the Cabinet Secretary are adhered to.
“For the direction given by the Ministry of Health, we
promise to align with the national standards, best practices, and existing
government policies in the internship process,” he said.
“We will clearly follow a transparent criterion in issuing
the posting letter. Specifically, only candidates who have successfully graduated
will be eligible for the internship offer letter.”
Furthermore, to ensure equity and fairness, the CS said that
students who have stayed home longer after graduation will have first priority
when seeking internship, as per the year they graduated, to ensure that everyone
is incorporated fairly.
Ian Nyantika, a nursing graduate from Moi University who had
missed out on the initial list of interns, welcomed the proposals from the CS.
He thanked him for the swift action to ensure all those who
had been left out from the internship posts are rightfully reinstated into the
internship list.
“We feel relieved
because justice has been served and all those who are eligible have been issued
with their posting letters to various internship centers in the country,” he
said.
“I wish to thank the
CS for honoring his promise and ensuring all those who are eligible have been
posted. I feel that the raft of measures proposed by the CS, especially
digitizing the whole process, will play a major role in combating such irregularities
in the future.”
The CS subtly mentioned a new policy he plans to roll out
where students will have to graduate, do the council exam, then go for
internship—unlike in previous years where one was required to graduate, go for
internship, then do council exams for licensure.
He said that the new
policy will make it easier for nurses to finish internship while holding the
license for posting into working areas.
