A letter to new Health CS from the people he will serve

Dear Hon Mutahi Kagwe, EGH,

First, receive heartfelt congratulations on my own behalf, and that of suffering Kenyans, upon your swearing-in as our new Cabinet secretary for Health. You passed your exams with flying colours even though you did not inform us where to send success cards.

We don’t know whether to thank you now for taking up your new job with energy and commitment, or to thank you later after proving to us that you need more than a birth certificate to merit an appointment to the Cabinet.

Kenyans are deeply sorry to not have given you sufficient orientation to your new post. You’re lucky you’ll be paid for learning on the job, something most jobless Kenyans only see in their dreams.

Please remember the seat you’re about to warm might be covered in leather, but it’s actually a pressure cooker waiting to bring you the heat. We don’t promise not to stand there and watch you burn, but what we can do is help you get a feel of the things that should cause you sleepless nights.

It’s been barely two weeks since your predecessor was summoned to Parliament and said there are people in your ministry who have been doctoring tender documents without her knowledge. Whatever you do, Bwana Waziri, do not let yourself sound as helpless as those who have gone before you. We hope that the day you will discover you cannot dismantle the cartels at Afya House, you will gather the courage to be candid about it and leave without your reputation looking like those pieces of fabric on the floor of a River Road tailor’s shop.

UNIVERSAL HEALTH COVERAGE

What Kenyans are worried about the most is the fate of the Universal Health Coverage (UHC) programme that was launched by President Uhuru Kenyatta in Kisumu a year ago. We were told UHC was the magic bullet that would dispense quality, affordable healthcare, but we haven’t seen tangible progress except for the government talking about it on air; you’d think Kenyan patients live in the clouds.

This is the same Kisumu that has been dominating the headlines with patients dying from neglect by medical personnel who in turn blame the county for reneging on their commitment to quality healthcare for all.

I beseech you; find time to speak to Governor Anyang’ Nyong’o and help him restore hope to our suffering patients, and if that won’t be possible, tell President Kenyatta to do what he did with the Nairobi City County, if that is what it will take to stop reggae in Kisumu.

I don’t know whether you have visited a public hospital lately, or at any point in your life, and if you haven’t I recommend that you urgently do.

Since the year began, Kenyans have been turned away from hospitals to go die at home because our blood banks have run out of fuel.

We are wondering why the government would waste taxpayers’ money buying fuel for high-end guzzlers and private choppers but cannot set aside time to buy free blood from willing donors.

We have always believed that blood is thicker than fuel, but apparently the government thinks petrol stations will come to our rescue in a life-threatening road accident.

If patients keep being sent back home to die, it’s no use calling our hospitals health facilities. All Kenyans know of them is news of dread, despair, and death. We need to turn our public death facilities into health facilities again.

We trust that you’re the right Kenyan for the job.

You cannot do that if you haven’t sorted the National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF). Late last month, Kenyans were warned that the Fund is in ICU and if drastic measures aren’t put in place, it will die in two years tops.

You do not want to be remembered as the Health minister who presided over the death of NHIF, because if that happens, no matter the good things you will do, you will be known as Mutahi Kagwe, the straight-shooting Undertaker who wrestled NHIF to the ground.

I will finish this letter with the coronavirus scare. The Ministry of Health has rushed to panel-beat a coronavirus isolation facility, which counts for something.

We keep being reminded how the Kenya Medical Research Institute (Kemri) has a laboratory that is the envy of East and Central Africa, but when the first coronavirus suspect case landed on our soil, we had to send the samples to faraway South Africa for litmus testing.

I don’t know how that makes you feel, but Kenyans feel helpless relying on a ministry that cannot even get the basics right.

We hope your tenure will herald the return of a robust health-system strengthening programme that puts the right people in the right places and gives them the right tools to Make Afya Great Again (MAGA).