Why Kenya-Cuba doctors’ exchange program is a non-starter

Turns out the much-hyped Kenya-Cuba doctors’ exchange program is not as rosy as expected.

If the depression and subsequent suicideof Likoni Mp, Mishi Mboko’s brother, Dr Hamisi Ali Juma is anything to go by, the Kenyan counterparts are barely surviving in the foreign country.

The ministry of Health has sent a team of experts to Cuba to assess a doctors exchange programme and document the challenges trainees in the Caribbean island are facing.

Delegation to inquire doctors’ conditions

“I have today sent a team from the ministry to carry out the assessment of the programme that the doctors are undertaking, and document the challenges in connection with the Kenyan embassy, propose any intervention that is needed,” Health Cabinet Secretary Sicily Kariuki said.

“With the comprehensive findings, we will be able to address and clear the air on what has been flying around and speculated on social media. I will be able to give a comprehensive press statement on matters Cuba when my team comes back with the facts,” she said.

One-week assessment

The team, led by Health Chief Administrative Secretary Rashid Asman, left on Wednesday and will be back in a week. It will present its findings to Ms Kariuki on March 30.

The government, in its efforts to build human resource capacity in health, signed a memorandum of understanding with Cuba for the exchange of specialists for service delivery and skills transfer.

The two countries also agreed to train and mentor doctors in special areas, including family medicine, critical care and oncology.

Two more years to go

The Kenyan doctors have been in Cuba for 11 months, and are expected to be there for two more years, at a cost of Sh215 million to the government.

But Kenyan doctors under the Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union (KMPDU) and the Kenya Medical Association (KMA) have demanded the immediate termination of the programme, saying, it is not benefiting Kenyan doctors.

Frustrated and broke

They want sponsorship given through the five local universities offering family medicine.

KMPDU Secretary-General Fredrick Oluga said the programme has left Kenyan doctors frustrated and vulnerable since the government neither got them proper housing nor pays them the promised allowances.

“Doctors cannot even afford to call their families back home, he said. The doctors in Cuba have also complained that the Kenyan embassy in Cuba does not take their grievances seriously.

Unions opposed the Cuba exchange program

At the signing of the exchange program last year, Kenya Union of Clinical Officers chairperson Mr Peter Wachira also added his voice to the medics’ disapproval, saying the government needed to consult widely with the medical fraternity and other stakeholders before effecting the move.

“In a country where we have over 7,000 clinical officers, 25,000 nurses and more than 1,000 doctors unemployed after expensive and rigorous training, the government must ensure proper stakeholders’ consultations if there is to be cooperation at the work place,” said Mr Wachira.

Dogged by shortfalls

Despite the presidential commitment to provide every Kenyan with universal health coverage by 2022, Kenya has a current shortfall of 42,800 health workers.

Currently, 63,000 health workers including 20,981 nurses, 3,284 clinical officers, 2,286 medical officers, 405 dentists, 1104 pharmacists, 293 radiologists and 22 radiation protection personnel are employed in public healthcare facilities.

The sector has been rocked in the recent past with two lengthy strikes by doctors and nurses that crippled the entire public health care system.

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