GYN CHRONICLES
Crisis In Healthcare
Dr . Maureen Owiti
Recent times have heralded a lot of shocking incidents , utmost in my mind as a gynaecologist being the delivery of woman outside Pumwani Hospital ’ s locked gates . For those who saw the video I believe you were equally dismayed and disgusted by the unfortunate encounter . Then came the usual circus of politicians pretending to care while only trying to milk the situation for their own political mileage . I may sound harsh but that is the stark reality of the sad situation in our beloved country . I am saddened that we seem saddled with loud mouthed opportunistic reactionary leaders and not the badly needed proactive visionary type with solid strategy and the willpower to change the destiny of this country .
As I am a born and bred Nairobian ( if such a thing exists as we are always asked to indicate the place of birth of our parents ) let me first address the issues that beleaguer my county . In as much as this incident was inhuman and totally uncalled for , we need to interrogate what brings about such events . At the time of the incident there was an on-going industrial action , in case the mother and her husband were not aware in the form of a county go-slow / strike . Since devolution was rolled out there have been countless strikes / go-slows and this year has been the worst in terms of the frequency of strikes .
At a time when the country and the world at large is fighting the novel coronavirus pandemic , the county has numerously failed to pay healthcare workers on time . Since the beginning of this financial year and in fact through most of the last financial year hardly any salary has come on time for these frontline soldiers leading to health services being paralyzed on many occasions . Wanjiku and the National Hospitals have borne the brunt of these frequent and unnecessary closures as their staff were not affected by delayed salaries .
However desperate times call for desperate measures . One cannot tell a landlord every month to wait for salaries not to mention because of their salary bracket these are people who have loans meaning they may be incurring penalties on late payments of loans among many woes bedeviling them . Thankfully SARS-Cov-2 i . e . Coronavirus has given them some respite on school fees , for those whose children attend public schools but the others may still
Being fair to the situation , for public institutions , avoid go-slows . Either work fully or declare an official strike to avoid such embarrassing and inconvenient incidences . Information is power and had an official strike been declared maybe this couple , would have sort services elsewhere avoiding this nasty scenario . have the agony of not letting their children attend online school as they don ’ t have the financial muscle to pay for those classes .
Being fair to the situation , for public institutions , avoid go-slows . Either work fully or declare an official strike to avoid such embarrassing and inconvenient incidences . Information is power and had an official strike been declared maybe this couple ( Pumwani incident ), would have sort services elsewhere avoiding this nasty scenario .
Another interesting and sad situation were my brother ’ s in Embu County who had resorted to pray for divine intervention to enable their employer to pay them . You can imagine working relentlessly for months without pay . In the usual fashion they requested for forgiveness but pleaded that they had not seen salaries for 4 months , no promotion in the last 5 years , and no funds to feed their families to the extent that their wives were on the verge of fleeing their marital homes .
From the outside looking in , it was appearing like a comedy but if one dared to introspect , how did we reach such a situation that grown professional men are reduced to beggars for what is rightfully owed to them ? Even for love of Country this is dehumanizing and discouraging . We were called to the profession to serve but deserve just pay for work done .
There is no doubt that devolution is a noble idea whose time has come , but like all good things maybe we should have phased how we are implementing it , especially in healthcare or come up with strict enforceable guidelines on how to cushion these essential services from the whims of
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