The Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union (KMPDU) has thrown its full weight behind Health Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale’s directive to freeze the licensing of foreign doctors, citing a festering crisis of unethical practices and organ trafficking in the country.
In a fiery press statement released on Sunday, the union painted a grim picture of Kenya’s healthcare sector, alleging that the unchecked recruitment of over 1,600 foreign doctors — mainly in plush private hospitals — had opened the floodgates to exploitation, medical malpractice, and even the sinister trade of human organs.
“We fully support the directive by the Cabinet Secretary to halt the licensing of foreign doctors,” KMPDU Secretary General Dr. Davji Atellah declared.
“The lives of Kenyans cannot continue to be gambled with in a profit-driven circus that undermines both patient safety and the dignity of our local medical practitioners.”
The union did not mince words, accusing private hospitals of circumventing ethical hiring standards, exploiting migrant doctors with poor working conditions, and in turn, creating fertile ground for dangerous medical malpractices.
In a stunning revelation, KMPDU linked the shadowy recruitment of foreign doctors directly to confirmed cases of illegal organ trafficking, warning that the very sanctity of human life was now at stake.
With over 4,000 qualified Kenyan doctors languishing in unemployment — many, the union lamented, reduced to hawking wares and selling timber — KMPDU slammed the system as “an insult to the Kenyan taxpayer” and “a betrayal of the country’s investment in its own.”
Demanding swift action, KMPDU laid down a raft of requirements alongside their support for the CS’s directive: a full audit of recruitment practices, public disclosure of areas with genuine doctor shortages, a crackdown on exploitative labor conditions, and a transparent reallocation of vacated jobs to qualified Kenyan practitioners.
“The State must act swiftly to safeguard our lives and health. At this critical time, it cannot abdicate its solemn duty and responsibility of guaranteeing every Kenyan the highest attainable healthcare, as enshrined in Article 43 of our Constitution,” said Dr. Atellah.
The union also sounded the alarm over political interference and bribery at the Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentists Council (KMPDC), warning that undue pressure to license unqualified individuals had turned healthcare into a perilous game of Russian roulette.
As the Health ministry’s freeze sets in, KMPDU vowed to keep a hawk’s eye on the process, pledging to champion a healthcare system “democratically owned, driven, and sustained by the people of Kenya,” echoing the spirit — and perhaps the desperation — of a nation fighting to reclaim the soul of its health system.
