OPINION: Doctors move a step in the right direction

There are lessons to be learnt from the outcome of Kenya’s request to Tanzania for 500 doctors after a protracted doctors’ strike recently came to an end in the neighbouring country.

For three months, Kenyans had to endure the ignominy of having to make do with clinical officers and nurses after doctors in public hospitals downed their tools demanding better pay and working terms.

Significantly, the request came after Kenyan doctors ended their strike and thus, in a way, averts a possible backlash against Tanzanian medics who take up postings in Kenya.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words and a photograph released by State House in Dar es Salaam where President John Magufuli met with the Kenyan delegation led by Health minister Cleopa Mailu showed that both the traditional and social media have all along been presenting a distorted image of relations between the two countries.

The doctors’ strike in Kenya has come to an end, but its consequences on the populace have brought to the forefront crucial questions that have to be asked. There is an even bigger question that East Africans need to find an answer to. After Brexit and Trump, we are much better off sharing our experts in fields such as medicine, education and law.

In years gone by, we would be running to the UK and even Cuba to seek assistance of this nature. In fact, it is the professionals who now need to review the standards around the region so that mutual recognition becomes the norm rather than the exception.

Hot on the heels of the just ended Tanganyika Law Society elections in which Mr Tundu Lissu was elected president by a landslide, our professional associations must be at the forefront of confronting what ails East Africa. As President Dr Magufuli pointed out while meeting the Kenyan delegation, Kenya’s problems are Tanzania’s problems.

It seems so simple when one looks at it that way. Our farmers need quality standards across the board. Our tourism can only benefit the wider population if we cooperate and not compete rather unintelligently as we have been doing.

Kenyan musician Teddy Kalanda Harrison has released a song. It praises the majesty of Mount Kilimanjaro. What is more, contrary to what a section of Tanzanians would like to believe, here is a Kenyan singing in praise of Mountt Kilimanjaro and clearly stating in his lyrics that the great Kilimanjaro is located in and is the pride of Tanzania.

That such a song has been done by an East African, caring less about nationalism and more about stating the facts as they are, tells us what we are missing every time we take to social media with stories of how Tanzanians are this and Kenyans are that.

That Kenyans stand to benefit from Tanzanian doctors in itself debunks a silly myth held by a few Kenyans that education standards here are lower than in the neighbour to the north. Indeed, let Tanzanians doctors, and a good 500 of them, go into Kenya’s public health care system and change the minds of the small cabal responsible for that sort of disinformation based on ignorance.

And while we are at it, Kenya and Tanzania and, by extension, the rest of East Africa need to provide our professionals better terms and salaries. It does not make sense to use public funds to train health workers only for them to run off to other countries where the pay and working conditions are better.

While considering this, we should also be asking ourselves why doctors in some private hospitals work much longer shifts than their counterparts in public facilities. Maybe it is time our doctors were paid for each patient attended to instead of getting full pay even if they are on duty for just a few hours.