#LipaKamaTender: Our politicians and public healthcare

By Wandia Njoya 

Sequel to  Cruel scalpel as the sick man’s money fuels health crisis 

The Kenyan medical team that separated conjoined twins after a 23-hour surgery in November 2016. SOURCE: This is Africa.

2017 will be a tense year for Kenya. It begins with wananchi suffering from lack of health services in the country's public hospitals due to the doctors' strike, and huge dissatisfaction with the runaway corruption that has plagued the Jubilee government. And yet, it appears that the Jubilee government is sabotaging the ability of voters to express that dissatisfaction through the ballot, especially after bulldozing amendments to the electoral act. But when it comes to healthcare, all sides of the political divide are amazingly united in shunning the public healthcare facilities they are supposed to build, and in seeking treatment in private hospitals or abroad. They then console us with philanthropy for services our taxes are supposed to cover, as our taxes disappear through corruption. Meanwhile, the journalists reporting the stories miss the ironies of the politicians' treatment choices.

I decided to take an audit of the positions of politicianson public healthcare indicated by their actions in government and in seeking treatment. In most of the cases, the public funds the politicians' policies and even treatment, especially abroad, but the politicians return the favor through philanthropy.

The problem with philanthropy is that its focus is on the benevolence of the individual donating charity, not on its effectiveness on healthcare for the Kenyan people. The absurdity of philanthropy is evident in the report of the ground-breaking ceremony or the Tesla Cancer Care Center by the First Lady in August 2015. The report says that "the facility will also establish a foundation through which deserving but under-privileged cancer patients will be taken care of." In other words, philanthropy decides who deserves healthcare and who doesn't. And the middle class will never get healthcare unless they pay through their noses, because inevitably, the foundation will never consider anyone with education and an income "under-privileged," even when they cannot pay medical bills.

So, as we vote this year, let's ask political candidates not what they will do for healthcare, but where they stand on
​
     a) universal healthcare for ALL Kenyans
     b) a law requiring elected officials and their immediate families to seek treatment in Kenya's public hospitals
     c) the Collective Bargaining Agreement that the government signed with the doctors

Source: Beth Mugo Cancer Foundation

Name: Beth Mugo
Current position: Nominated Senator
A niece to the current president, Beth Mugo was Health Minister in the Kibaki Govt when, as she testifies, a lump had been spotted in her breast. She flew to the US where the tests were done, and she was diagnosed with stage 1 cancer.

The irony of a health minister seeking treatment abroad aside, Mugo's story embodies the  magnitude of the inequality that is cancer care in Kenya. Most Kenyans are diagnosed with cancer at stage three and four because of a dire lack of pathologists and laboratories to do the biopsies. But Mugo got not just her treatment, but her diagnosis done in the US. In the interview, the best that Lillian Muli could do to highlight the socio-political implications of Mugo's treatment was to ask the Senator the monotonous question of what she was doing to "give back to society." To which the Senator replied (suprise, suprise) that she was launching the Beth Mugo Cancer Foundation to promote awareness on the most common cancers in Kenya. The foundation credits Sen. Mugo for "the development of the National Cancer Control Strategy (2011-2016), the enactment of the Cancer Prevention and Control Act (2012), and the establishment of the National Cancer Institute of Kenya" during her tenure.

Source: IPSA

Name: Prof Peter Anyang' Nyong'o
Current position: Senator, Kisumu County
Under the Kibaki-Raila government, Prof Nyongo was the coalition partner of Beth Mugo as Minister for Medical Services. He was diagnosed with prostate cancer and sought medical care in California, USA. In the interview carried out  by suave journalist Johnstone Mwakazi, no mention was made of the irony of the minister seeking treatment abroad. Soon after, he founded the Africa Cancer Foundation.

Source: @RuthOdinga1 on Twitter

Name: Ruth Odinga
Current Position: Deputy Governor, Kisumu County
A sister to Prime Minister Raila Odinga. In an article on how politicians would be spending their Christmas in 2015, she was reported to be nursing a fracture while in St. George's Hospital in London, but at least she remained true to her ODM party by requesting an orange cast. The writer, Kevine Omollo, made no mention about who was footing the bill for her treatment in London.

Source: Utawala

Name: Isaac Ruto
​Current Position: Governor, Bomet County
In November 2016, Governor Ruto was hit on his face by a teargas canister when fracas broke out at a football match. He was airlifted to Nairobi, after which he headed to South Africa to complete treatment. He become the butt of jokes and memes on social media through the Isaac Ruto Challenge, including from the crew at Larry Madowo's show The Trend. At least this time, the media pointed out that the trip was an insult to Bomet voters. In December 2016, Governor Ruto was reported to have assaulted striking doctors meeting in his county. 
​

Source: a gutter press

Uhuru and Margaret Kenyatta
Current position: President and First Lady of Kenya

LONG READ ALERT (So much to say)

The president's party's manifesto for the 2013 presidential election reads like a manifesto for the commercialization of healthcare in Kenya. Even though it eventually mentions free maternal care and improved working conditions for doctors, it starts by talking of turning Kenya into a medical tourism hub like India.

In my book, tourism symbolizes exploitation and lack of creative economic thinking. But also, there's no country with universal healthcare that is also a medical tourism destination. India, the Kenya government's role model, spends only 4.2% of its GDP on health care, and 70% of its population has little or no access to healthcare. In other words, the Kenyan middle class complacency is colluding with the denial of healthcare to not only the Kenyan poor, but also to the Indian poor. If we the middle class have values and a conscience, we should not agree to be complicit in denying the dignity of health care to the poor anywhere in the world.

Within a few months of taking office, the president attended a ground-breaking ceremony for Nairobi Hospital's anticipated Sh 2bn campus in Machakos, hosted by then CEO Cleopas Mailu. By November 2015, Mailu was CS of the Health docket, and is currently presiding the government's silence on the doctors' strike. In December 2016, as the strike continued to bite, the president awarded CS Mailu with the honor of Elder of the Golden Heart at State House.

The article that probably best articulates the cynicism with which the Jubilee government is exploiting the sick, is in a piece in the New York Times. The article is about an investor of the Abraaj group seeking to cash in on the Nairobi middle class by providing private healthcare. When asked by a medical intern at Mama Lucy Hospital (yes, our doctors care) whether he will provide healthcare for the poor, who have the greatest need, the investor replies: "We can’t go to that part of the population because the business is just not sustainable.”

One cannot avoid concluding that the point of the government remaining mum on the doctors' strike is to protect private healthcare investment profits. The first way to do that is by preventing the formation of a doctors' union. And nothing confirms that more than the fact that on reading the CBA between the government and the union, the first item of agreement after the preliminaries is the Union's rights. The right of the union to represent doctors in not only labor relations, but also in the formulation of healthcare policy and implementation, is something that private investors would like to avoid. Without a union, and with a broken public healthcare system, the private healthcare business can literally dictate healthcare policy in Kenya, including tying doctors' hands in terms of the care they give to patients. 

The president knows the power of the unions only too well. And he also knows the power of crushing the unions. When former prime-minister Margaret Thatcher died on the morning of his swearing in as president, he sent a message of condolences that made Thatcher sound like an angel. He said: " the late Lady Thatcher was a decisive and firm leader who will be remembered across the world for the frontline role she played in championing free market economic ideology." Among Thatcher's most notorious achievements was the crushing the UK miners' unions, and, whole towns and families with them. Ironically, she was accorded a state funeral funded by the very public she so despised.

It is clear that while the First Couple speak as if they are interested in public health services, they were more keen on the private ones. Through the Beyond Zero marathon, the First Lady has been raising funds for the very maternal healthcare her husband had promised would be free of charge, earning great admiration and sponsorship even from the Ministry of Health, which is supposed to provide the services for which she runs the marathons. And most of the runners are, funnily enough, the Kenyan middle class. In August 2015, she launched the construction of Tesla Cancer Hospital in Ridgeways. The state-of-the art private center intends to tap into what is considered a Sh 10bn market, and there will be a foundation to take care of patients who are "deserving" but cannot afford the services.

Source: Kenya Today

Name: Mpuru Aburi
Current Position: MP, Tigania East, voted in on an ODM ticket, defected to Jubilee 
Already days into the doctors' strike, Hon Aburi got involved in a scuffle in Parliament over the amendment to the electoral laws.  He flew to Germany for specialized treatment. Although the report is not from one of Kenya's main newspapers, the article says that Aburi "was forced" to seek medical attention abroad due to the doctors' strike.

Source: The Star

Name: Irshad Surma
Current Position: MP, Embakasi South, ODM
In the same parliamentary fracas that sent Aburi to Germany, Hon Surma was also injured and sought treatment at Nairobi Hospital. Once again, it's not clear from the newspaper reports who footed the bill.

Source: KU TV

CORD and Jubilee 
While both parties fought physically and with insults over Jubilee's unilateral amendment of the electoral laws, none of them seemed to see the irony of taking a break from the holidays to return to parliament but not talk about the poor dying for lack of treatment, or of the personal and business interests preventing the resolution of the impasse.

And while they distracted the Kenyan public with fighting over elections (that's the issue on which they always make us wananchi fight), both parties quickly passed  a bill that will reward every MP with Sh 10 million each when they leave parliament this year.  I guess "ushenzi" doesn't apply when the rich are ganging up against the poor through denying them the right to healing and to life

THE CRUMBLING STATE OF HEALTH IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

I HELD MY BREATH AS I LISTENED TO THE GOV SPOKESMAN
On the early hours of Thursday morning on the 6th April 2012, I received a distress call from a respected friend anesthetist at the Kamuzu Central Hospital in Lilongwe.He was asking if by any chance as a visiting WE TRIBE I had some adrenaline in my traveling goody bag. I had non. 30 minutes later, he called again and in confidence told me that the head of state had passed on, he was frustrated because he couldn't get a vial of adrenaline at the countries government's premier referral facility to restart the Head of states cardiac activity after he arrested early that morning, there was no specialist either to guide the resuscitative efforts.The defibrillator at the hospital was a defunct donation that failed at the hour of need. For publicity, the stiff body was flown to SA to give room for transition and sipping of the tragic news to the nation.The rest is in public domain. A year earlier, I had joined a high powered delegation to the Lilongwe state house to plead a case for the need to rebuild the broken health systems in Malawi. Statehouse categorically informed our delegation that there were more pressing budget items that needed support, and I particularly remember a senior Government health official stating to the forum that they have bilateral understanding with India and South Africa to treat the citizens who need specialized care beyond the nations borders. So yesterday,as I saw the government spokesman trivialize an issue of life and death on National Media houses, I held my breath as history was fast replaying on the screen.Only time will tell if it will replay full circle.

LETTER TO THE PRESIDENT

Hello Mr. President

 

I won’t say shame on you because in my thick savannah-toughened blood runs decorum and respect for the elders, even when you don’t agree with them. Just like any other doctor, i am on strike and not amused about how you handling the matter. My million-dollar wish is to see the day where any Kenyan can write to you on; accountability, governance, corruption, national health, national security, unemployment to mention but a few. But that will call for a high literacy level record of the hoi polloi and change of the social class in terms of poverty eradication.

This is what the French call ‘cri de couer’ for the millions of Kenyans like me, who are tired of how healthcare has literally become a forgone rights and how the devil took control of paradise on earth and fed on the blood of people it was supposed to protect.

Sir, your government is not exceptional if not special when it comes to regimes that bank on the illiteracy and poverty status of its electorates. That is the very reason you will go on a political rally, not coincidentally, on a day the low class Kenyans are dying as the doctors are on strike. It only happens in states like Kenya.

Sir, in the real world, where citizens know their rights, you will be impeached and your record track of good governance will plummet in a record synonymous to Wall-street’s numbers, in times like the great depression. Chew on that.

You are charged with the herculean task of delivering affordable healthcare to each and every Kenyan and it beats me how you can sleep at night. You very well know the importance of healthcare to citizens. The very sleepless night a mother goes through when her child is sick or nursing a condition only treatable in some fancy hospitals abroad.

Kenya has embarked on millennium development goals including eradication of poverty and hunger, primary education for all, gender equality and reduced infant and maternal mortality rate. It’s unfortunate that the projected goals are far from realization and healthcare specifically is for the chosen few and the ever-growing middle class of Kenya. In fact, it’s safe to say the current impasse of healthcare only affects the majority who pay taxes, only to be enjoyed by minority over the very basic rights of access to better healthcare.

Health economics dictates the effectiveness of a country’s health scheme to be pecked on three yardsticks; accessibility, cost and quality. Am afraid, the entire access factor is emasculated by the quality factor in terms of facilities and workforce in our healthcare system.

Kenyans are crippled by preventable diseases. The statistics are shocking. The so-called referral hospitals, which are only three for the 40million Kenyans have ramshackle facilities and painful bureaucracy of service delivery. We are very far from achieving WHO standards for specifically low requirement sub-Sahara Africa.The very strike by doctors and nurses camouflaged the very pictures of the shocking revelations in both Kenya and the mother continent. Africa bears a quarter of the world’s disease burden, 65% of which are communicable diseases. It has only 2% of world’s doctors and contributes 1% of the global health expenditure.

Politicians neither have the incentives nor the information for doctors. It’s sad that with all the advisers from different portfolios you enjoy, one would advise you to stay mum about the country’s healthcare crisis and make a mere parting shot about how doctors can’t bring back the lives of Kenyans who regretfully died as a result of the strike. These are issues that require you to urgently convene a crisis meeting and make an official state address under the glaring of state press. That gives the commoner a value for his vote.

 

The ministry of health has been plagued by cases of all sorts. From alleged corruption cases, misplaced priorities in terms of its budget and above all not implementing the Collective bargaining agreement (CBA) that it signed with the doctors three years ago. The credibility of its occupants has gone so low and we are very disappointed.

Kenyans have short memory! Mandarins and cold-heart good-for-nothing degenerates squander money every day in your government and you are shocked of the demand by doctors’ pay rise? That’s because we first see doctors’ fault before the government. We vote them in perennially while we know their morality stain. Tribalism literally trumps every virtue in this country. Jobs are no longer given on merits, appointment to offices are not based on competency.

Even with the current pay rise of doctors, the attention will never shift to how the government has failed to provide for a good healthcare for Kenyans.

Dockets like National Health, Security and Infrastructure are not low budget portfolios and rightly so deserves proper funding.
Sir, Implementing the CBA will turn around healthcare in this country. Think of the incentive and the will of work a doctor or a nurse will have in executing his or her duties. Think of the over 3000 Kenyan doctors working abroad as a result of brain-drain after losing hope. Think of the realization of the dream of that high school kid who says, “I want to be a neurosurgeon “and realizes his dream. Think of the incentive related medical research think-tanks and an end to communicable diseases as a result. Above all, think of an end to the politicians including you who brand Kenya as a country with no proper health facilities when they have to fly abroad for minor procedures like hernias not to mention change of Elastoplast by our governor!

Pay the doctors their Money. It’s a bitter truth that its only money that tests the fabrics of ones’ faith in relation to the description of a doctor’s work as a ‘calling’ Kenyans have bought that single story tragedy hook, line and sinker. Doctors too need to eke a living. George Bernard Shaw said: “We have not lost faith, but we have transferred it from God to the medical profession”.

Adopt a watertight healthcare and health workers’ program. Provide an affordable, accessible and quality healthcare such as health insurance scheme for every citizen that can be enjoyed at the grass root level. Equip our hospitals, and not only in the final year of your term. Tarmac our road networks and let there be a sense of equality and belonging to this country. Secure our borders and beef up our security even if it takes you to build a wall at our border entry points.

 

SONG OF THE FREE

SONG OF THE FREE
We walked in darkness now seeing great light
Out of the shadows into your sunshine
Joy has began great celebrations
Joining one-voice worshiping nation

Chains I was bound now have been broken
Doors that were shut have been flung wide open
Joy has began great celebration
Joining one-voice worshiping nation

Chorus
This is a song a song of free
We sing hosanna
We’ve been redeemed cause our humble king…
has shown us compassion

Chains I was bound now have been broken
Doors that were shut have been flung wide open
Joy has began great celebration
Joining one-voice worshiping nation
Chorus
This is a song a song of free
We sing hosanna
We’ve been redeemed cause our humble king….
has shown us compassion

So we fall to our knees…..
Throw up our hands…….
Cry to the lamb that was slain
We say

You are worthy of all the praise you are, you are (repeat 4 times)

STATE OF HEALTH IN KENYA

INTRODUCTION

#STATEOFHEALTH has been a popular and trending topic on Kenyan social media platforms recently. Being a healthcare worker I know a thing or two about what is ailing the health sector in the country. Indulge me as I share some few thoughts with you.

THE POLITICS OF IGNORANCE AND SELF INTEREST

A few years ago, Kenyan healthcare workers took to the street to protest the poor state of the health sector. They warned that a darkness had been slowly gathering. Decades of under investment in health had finally caught up with the nation and threatened to undermine our collective resolve towards development. 

The issues at stake were deplorable working conditions, under staffing, poor pay, specialist training and broken down health infrastructure. We were then treated to the poor spectacle of strikes and unnecessary patient suffering. All along the political class promised they have prioritized healthcare and soon things would be better.

In the most recent of industrial action, doctors and nurses said that they were opposed to the hurried devolution of health services. They said they want structures and policies in place that would ensure the smooth transition from national to county level. I remember my troubles when explaining to some interested Kenyans how the strike is not about money but about principles.

Both the politicians and the public criticized the action, reminding us that we took an oath to protect lives. Nobody cared to listen to the numerous union officials explain the logic and rationale behind the strike. Some said 'We would understand if you downed tools for salaries like teachers of this country.... 'The governors promise to handle heath better than the national government ever did....'the structures you desire will be legislated by the real experts of the constitution and the law.  And so  the government moved quickly to devolve health. Perhaps central government wanted to wash its hands of the burden of negotiating with a unified doctors union( kmpdu). They must have reckoned that it would be harder for devolved workers to unionize and strike whenever calls for dialogue were ignored.

THE DARKNESS FINALLY ARRIVES

After two years of the health devolution experiment, it is safe to say that the country's healthcare system has been turned into a complete mess. We all know what the problems are, and how they they can be solved, but in typical Kenyan style, we are too distracted with politically rooted headlines to notice.

A quick glance at the news making stories in healthcare makes me weep. GOVERNORS OPPOSED TO 38BILLION MEDICAL EQUIPMENT LEASING!! BEYOND ZERO!!! FIRST LADIES FIGHTING CANCER!! DEADLY INJECTION LEAVES CHILDREN LIMPING!!! ARVS IN DUMP SITE!!! YOUNG MEN DIE OF ALCOHOL WITHDRAWAL etc.

The real issues facing ordinary Kenyans are never brought to the fore. Not the many children who die of easily treatable diarrhea and vomiting, nor the many whose kidneys are failing because of the thriving unregulated quacks and herbal medicine men who claim to cure chronic illnesses like AIDS, diabetes and cancer.

What irks me the most is though, is how the counties have handled health. For obvious reasons, County governments were quick to take over the budgeting and procurement roles. The immediately bought pick up trucks and painted the word AMBULANCE' on them. This they said, would ensure the people with various health emergencies were promptly rushed to the hospital.

A closer look at this noble idea reveals the folly of letting  Governors and MCAs control health budgets.

First the vehicles do not have basic life saving equipment required in an ambulance. No emergency lifesaving drugs, no oxygen, no staff. Secondly, in my county at least, the vehicles don't even have fuel and maintenance budgets. Did they purchase easily serviceable vehicles like Toyota? Nope. Counties have style. They do American Ford rangers....Vehicles with no easily available after sale services. When they break down, repairing them is expensive and time consuming since you have to wait for spares from dealerships. All this added cost to taxpayers, for no value whatsoever!

These ambulances are regularly seen in funeral ceremonies, usually aiding in transport logistics. Usually the local MCA is in attendance to point out how helpful he has been. Eti..hii ambulance no yenu! Free!' Interesting to see how the shepherd always try to persuade the sheep that their interest and their own are the same.

The counties also took up the purchasing of medical drugs. All good, but as we all know, they don't consult health care workers on the ground. The result has been delayed supply, wastage due to stocking drugs with complete disregard for demand and consumption data. Indeed, many hospital pharmacies regularly overstock on drugs they don't need, and quickly run out of essential drugs.

EQUATING DEVELOPMENT WITH CONCRETE

In my county, there are over 90 government run health facilities. Majority of these are dispensaries and health centers manned (or more appropriately, womaned) by few nurses. This situation is replicated throughout the country; in some cases, a single nurse runs the facility. With no clinicians or medical laboratory technicians available, the nurses usually have a short list of diagnoses to choose from. The most popular is malaria of course.

Recently a story of limping children in Teso hit national headlines. The nurse had wrongly administered quinine and injured the sciatic nerves of over 30 children. Images of children dragging their feet with foot drop were broadcast allover. Kenyans were outraged.....How could she? Where was the nurse trained?.. She should be suspended pending disciplinary action.

A media house even interviews the director of medical services, who had nothing but tough speak about how he would demand answers from the nursing council. I guess by now somebody is out of a job that ideally shouldn't have been theirs in the first place.

Does a government that has commissions nurses to play doctors, lab techs and pharmacists.....(heck even accountants and hospital administrators)....have the moral authority to prescribe punishment to same nurses when they err? Kenyans would rather see that nurse fired than wonder why government has posted her without any support to offer services that meet standard of care.

Its shameful for a politician and county executive to stand and criticize a single individual, to walk away with cheap political capital while at the same time do nothing to address the real issues. County governments it would seem, are happy to have health money devolved, but when questions about service delivery are asked, of course it is the health workers at fault. After all, remember the expensive ambulances we have procured?

Take the example of Embu county. Its one of the geographically smaller ones, with slightly over 500,000 residents. It has over 133 health facilities, about 90 of which are government run. The various ward MCAs have taken to building maternity wards in even the smallest centers near each other. Was this based on need or catchment population needs? Of course not. Such lofty details that concern the professionals pale in comparison with the political mileage one stands to gain by erecting an empty concrete structure.  Some now record less than one delivery a week. Midwives there are bored to death. So instead of waiting for the rare delivery, they would rather leave clear instructions about how they can get the ambulance to rush the laboring mothers to the main hospital, for free of course. Thanks Mr governor... Mr MCA. This is not a frivolous referral either, because the maternities were built but not equipped.

This is how to play tennis without the net. Simple Kenyans voters are happy with the  politicians for their hard work. The politicians are happy too because any further failures in this arrangement can be blamed on a poor nurse who just can't seem to do her job right. 

Meanwhile, middle class Kenyans who can spare a few coins aren't bothered. If they want health services, they just go to private hospitals.....where the more they pay, the better they think their health gets.

The man eat man situation

Every time I walk out the door of my house I cannot help but take note of the number of people out there grinding. The shoe shiner in front of the little M-Pesa shop making sure our shoes are clean; The newspaper vendor up with the early birds to ensure we get the news of the day; The Matatu tout shouting his voice hoarse before even the sun is up for commuters to get to their destinations early; The lady in that small mabati establishment ‘’hotel’’ serving tea and mandazis for the bachelors and other Kenyans unable to take breakfast at home; The thousands and thousands of pedestrians walking miles and miles to reach their work place every day; Truly there are many people working hard in this great Nation to make ends meet.
Kenya is a country of hardworking individuals, all with hopes of better tomorrow. It saddens me therefore to see the sweat, blood and tears go down the drain. The hope for a better life is being looted at an alarming rate by people who call themselves hustlers but do not have the slightest of clue what that word means. The cycle of poverty is the single most difficult obstacle to navigate because the rich want to maintain their status quo. This is evidenced by the way our ‘’leaders’’ take seconds to increase their salaries but ages and eons to add teachers and other ‘’low’’ cadre civil servants peanuts.
As a small boy growing up in the village attending a school without doors or windows, bare feet and with torn shorts, I was always encouraged by my teachers to not think about my situation then but to do something about it. The slogan was’ Hard work pays’. I bought it, worked hard and became a Doctor. I cannot help but feel cheated. I know I am not alone; the newspaper vendor, the shoe shiner, the Matatu tout among others must feel cheated too
We talk about living the American dream; we celebrate when people go abroad for greener pastures; Can we create and live our own Kenyan dream? Yes WE can. Can we develop greener pastures in our own backyard? Yes WE can. The solution is simple; let’s all embrace our responsibility and responsibilities to our neighbors. Let us make hard work pay again. Start by reminding the government WE are the taxpayers, the heavy lifters and as such are entitled to better education, quality health and lifestyle
The good book says Love thy neighbor as you do yourself; the greatest commandment of all. Our neighbors are dying because they are poor and unable to join the elite in flying abroad or attending private hospitals for treatment. Let our voices be heard, stand up and be counted. Join the Kenyan Doctors in wanting the Kenyan dream. Let hard work pay again.
# LipaKamaTender .
# ImplementCBA.
# IstandWithDoctors

DEVIL DEVOLUTION

COPIED

MISPLACED PRIORITIES
In my workplace, a level 4 hosp, there is a C-Arm xray machine, purchased by govt in the recent flury of tenders by the MOH. A C-arm xray is used by highly skilled Orthopaedic surgeons to minimise "cutting" of patients during operations & ensure proper alignment of bones. The truth is orthopaedic surgeons can still work pretty well without this machine, its just supposed to make work easier, faster & more accurate.
The county, which has two level 4 hospitals(hence 2 machines) has only 1 physician, 1 general surgeon, 1 gynecologist, no paediatrician & no orthopaedic specialist. As things stand, there is no hope of having these specialists soon.
We have the very latest digital xray & ultrasound scan machines but no radiographer to operate them. In this same hosp I sometimes have to shamefully refer patients due to some basic reasons like the theatre has no oxygen, no electricity & hosp generator has no fuel, or lack of normal saline, etc. Yes we launched these machines in front of cameras but mama mboga is still suffering. She will applaud u and blame the the doctor thinking they are lazy on their jobs.

Wht's the point of splashing 40bn on machines if service delivery remains the same? Isn't this defrauding the taxpayer? Are we really addressing the pains of the pple?

In any organization, whenever u want to introduce some form of service, employee training/recruitment is the 1st step, because human resource is the most important factor in its success.
I am a believer tht true success is always abt the pple. If the pple did not embrace facebook, Mark Zuckerberg would not b a great man. China is the strongest economy in the world, why? They have a huge knowledgeable population,  who r all providing their expertise in their economy. The doctor's CBA is aimed at retaining such skilled expertise in our country.
Someone needs to speak for mama mboga. We need direction in this country.
#lipakamatender#
#doctorsontrial#