The Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union (KMPDU) on Tuesday, March 21, accused the government of neglecting doctors working in Cuba through an exchange programme signed between Kenya and Cuba.
The KMPDU officials were responding to concerns raised in the Senate regarding the alleged plan by the Ministry of Health to restrict Kenyan health workers from seeking jobs abroad.
In their response, the officials led by Secretary General Davji Atellah told Senators that most doctors under the program were living under deplorable conditions in their host nation.
Thus, the doctors called for the suspension and prompt audit of the programme to ascertain the real situation.
In addition, the doctors decried the low absorption rate of doctors in Kenya despite the existing deficit of the required ratio of doctors to the population.
Dr Atellah stated that the number of doctors employed by the government was 5,680 compared to a population of over 50 million people citing data in possession of the Union.
According to KMPDU, the high rate of unemployment among doctors was a major contributor to the trend where Kenyan-trained doctors turned to foreign nations for job opportunities.
In addition, the union and other stakeholders present implored the committee to push for the revision of the terms of service for doctors and health workers in general as a show of goodwill in addressing the plight of workers in the sector.
"Roughly every year from 2015 the council has been graduating about 950 to 1,000 doctors but only 1,000 have been employed across the 47 counties," he told the committee.
"A number of doctors have graduated but the employment has not been progressive. In the counties going to a hospital and seeing a doctor is a near impossibility."
In December 2022, questions on the exchange programme between Kenya and Cuba emerged after officials from KMPDU called for the government to make public the details of Cuban doctors working in Kenya.
The doctors had issued a demand to the government to divulge the particulars of the agreements signed as they complained of unfair pay and discrimination against Kenyan doctors.
