On February 7th Ministry of Health put out a memo saying that the migration of health workers is destabilizing the health system by causing long-term economic loss that ends up not serving the country’s needs.
“Kenya in the recent past has experienced both emigration and immigration. This migration if not well harnessed it has the potential of destabilizing or weakening our health systems through various ways, including; antecedent brain drain, long-term economic loss on education investments that end up not serving the country’s needs, and possible exploration of skilled health professionals by predatory recruitment agencies leading to uncoordinated and unfair labor engagements,” the director general for health said.
In order to resolve this, they suggested that they have a systematic process for health workers migration that will make sure the country’s mandate to provide health care is maintained.
The memo provoked netizens online in a somewhat negative way. Some of the comments from them are cited below;
“It would be unconstitutional if it were to be implemented,” John Gachui a social media user voiced.
“We have more healthcare workers than we can afford to employ. Why would we restrict their migration to greener pastures?” Mwaniki Mwangi also posted on his socials.
“Nigeria and Ghana tried and it failed. We shall overcome this too,” another user Alexander Githi said.
