Kenyan doctors are as good as any, it’s the system that is rotten

I have heard all excuses under the sun as to why our leaders prefer to go to hospitals abroad, but for Esther Passaris to suggest that she can’t get medical experts in Kenya and that is why she went to India is stretching it.

This is not only insulting to the medical profession but highlights the contempt with which our leaders hold everyone, including those that have better skills than them!

Going abroad for treatment, be it to the UK or India, embodies the class system between the halves and the have-nots.

The one-upmanship that has engulfed all and sundry, trying to keep up with the Joneses even on health matters, shows the insecurity in us. Either that or we are paying our leaders too much — which needs reviewing.

We need more funds in healthcare and not in the pockets of selfish leaders, who then use the big salaries to ridicule our poverty.

Even if our leaders used other financial sources to seek treatment abroad, it still does not auger well in a country where poor people are dying of preventable diseases and relying on aid for treatment.

HIV/Aids and malaria programmes are still dependent on aid from developed countries to save many poor Kenyans from death.

Why can’t we afford to fund such programmes yet we can pay huge salaries for ‘big’ people?

How is the huge pay justified in the face of the socioeconomic challenges many Kenyans face?

We clearly aren’t getting value for our money if Kenyans still struggle to access universal health coverage (UHC).

Kenya has enough Indian doctors than you can shake your stick at. It doesn’t need to take one to travel all the way to India to find an Indian doctor.

And most of those practising in the country, including their African colleagues, are as good as any globally.

I can attest to that from my interaction with them in our public hospitals as they treated my family and friends.

Most of our medical consultants can compete with the best in the world but we choose not to acknowledge them due to a misplaced and ridiculous class system.

In the quest of pursuing status, we think it important to knock down professionals who have spent years to hone their craft in order to satisfy egos.

To use the misdemeanour of one doctor to tarnish an entire profession is grossly unfair. I think it is racist too.

That of black on black. I also think it is sad that it is the kind of racism perpetuated mostly by our African leaders who would rather be treated by doctors with more hint of ‘yellow-yellow’ skin or softer hair than their fellow African peers.

I am not suggesting that you should not consult non-African doctors but to be more diverse in our choices in order to help in building the database of local medical experts.

White doctors did not rise to the highest posts in medicine by dint of their skin colour.

They put in time in college, got support for their research and are well remunerated to be able to perform at the very top.

No wonder developed countries are never short of Nobel Prize winners for science, or medicine. Science has no colour.

It boils down to the support given to the scientist by their countries and that aimed at growing local expertise to meet the demand for health workers.

We put our medical professionals in hospitals that are not fit for human habitation, give them bare materials to work with, put them down and then expect them to shine. They can’t in such scenarios.

How on earth do our leaders expect to improve on the numbers of medical experts if they do not support them psychologically and financially?

No wonder most of the local medical practitioners depend on the private sector for financial and professional success.

The solution to UHC is not flying across the world to look for better healthcare than your voters; it lies in making sure UHC is spread out across the country in its best form and accessible by all.

But it is encouraging to see recruitment of more staff into the health sector. This should not be a flash in the pan but something that will be the norm in order to make healthcare accessible to all.

It is a big shame and reprehensible that the Ministry of Health is dogged by corruption time and again, yet it should be one department that is saturated with compassion.

But alas! I am sure once corruption is tackled in such a key ministry and the work of crucial organisations such as the NHIF streamlined we shall improve provision of healthcare and give confidence to our snowflake leaders to have faith in our medical experts and hospitals for once. Above all, it should be better for us, the people.

Before political leaders lambast the medics and fly off to India for aspirin, they must ask themselves what they have done to improve their local hospitals.

You can’t knock down doctors and hospitals that you don’t support.