Don’t send docs to Kenya: MAT

What you need to know:

MAT chairman, Dr Obadia Nyongole, said they were concerned about the security and professional hurdles likely to face the medics while in Kenya.

Dar es Salaam. As Kenya yesterday laid down procedures for recruiting the 500 doctors from Tanzania, the Medical Association of Tanzania (MAT) demanded that the whole process be reversed.

MAT chairman, Dr Obadia Nyongole, said they were concerned about the security and professional hurdles likely to face the medics while in Kenya.

“Until now, the government of Kenya has not yet fully resolved its differences with the doctors union there. As MAT, we would have supported this decision by the government to send the doctors if it was done at the right time,’’ said Dr Nyongole.

MAT also urged the government of Tanzania to first find a way of getting the young doctors out of the unemployment crisis, instead of sending them to Kenya.

However, in Kenya, the Health Cabinet Secretary Cleopa Mailu said yesterday the Kenyan government was already expecting the Tanzanian doctors who have been scheduled to start working in country during the first week of April.

Dr Mailu was quoted by the Nation Media Group as saying that the Tanzanian medics would be given two-to-three year contracts, and would be posted to national, county and faith-based health facilities.

Back home in Tanzania, MAT, a body whose role is to safeguard the interests of medical professionals in the country, said yesterday that it was not ready to see the doctors off to Kenya.

Dr Nyongole said it was still insecure for the Tanzanian doctors to work in Kenya. The decision to send the 500 doctors, he said, has also come at a time when Kenya is heading into the general election.

“Who will be responsible for the doctors’ security in Kenya? We have already noted signs of animosity, especially from the doctors’ community in Kenya. Our government must have addressed these concerns before thinking of posting the medics. We, as MAT, were also not consulted on this,’’ he later told The Citizen.

Besides, he added, there is an acute shortage of medical doctors that needs to be addressed in Tanzania. Yet, more than 1,700 newly-licensed medical doctors have not been recruited in government-run hospitals.

The Health minister is on record as saying the Tanzanian government cannot currently employ the doctors because of financial challenges.

President John Magufuli granted Kenya’s request for the 500 doctors last weekend. Dr Magufuli said the decision was reached due to the cordial relationship that the two countries are enjoying.