KMTC Board Told To Train Nurses First, Demand Payment Later – Kagwe

KILIFI, Kenya, May, 8 – Health Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe has directed the Kenya Medical Training College board to allow nurses to train and pay later as the government eyes foreign employment opportunities.

Kagwe said this at Ocean Beach Resort in Malindi after officially launching the National Nursing and Midwifery Policy that seeks to streamline the sector and protect practitioners from legal suits emanating from their work.

He said that already the government was in talks with the governments of Saudi Arabia, Italy, Kuwait, and other countries to offer employment opportunities to Kenyan nurses.

“We signed a document with the UK government, we have also got requests for nurses to work in Kuwait, Italy, Saudi Arabia, and other countries and it has been made possible by the ministry of health working very closely with the ministry of labour and other missions overseas and the ministry of foreign affairs,” he said.

“I am making it clear that these nurses are not the critical ones we need in our facilities but those who have trained and have not been absorbed in our facilities because we train more nurses that our facilities can absorb,” he said.

According to Kagwe, KMTC was charging nurses who want to train for foreign jobs Sh40,000 whereby most of them cannot afford the fee.

He said Kenyans irrespective of their financial status should be given an opportunity to study and get jobs outside the country adding that the country has more than 7,000 graduate nurses every year who cannot get absorbed in local institutions.

“We started a program so that they can adapt to destination requirements that we have for them and yes KMTC also needs money but I have directed today that we must create a structure where not a single health worker with an opportunity to work overseas is stopped because of lack of money. We cannot stop someone from earning Sh400, 000 a month just because they could not afford Sh40,000 in advance,” he said.

He also said that the new nursing and midwifery policy will help safeguard practitioners from legal issues and streamline the sector.

Kagwe also added that a new structure was on course to cut bureaucracy in government to fast track the implementation of policies.

“We cannot have the same management structures that we used 20 years ago and we are going to change the structure so that it cuts bureaucracy and makes decisions quickly. Too many documents get stuck just because the officeholder is on leave and this should be changed,” he said.

The Chairperson of the Nurses Council of Kenya Dr. Eunice Ndirangu said that the country has a good pull of nurses as between 6,000 and 8,000 nurses graduate every year.