Public Health officials demand better terms of service for interns, threaten labour action

The Kenya Environmental Health and Public Health Practitioners Union (KEHPHPU) officials have demanded better terms of service for intern in the field, threatening industrial action if their demands are not met within 14 days.

The Public health officers maintained that there has been discrimination and unfairness in appointment and payment of these interns in the country.

Led by the Union National Secretary General Brown Ashira, the unionists told the government to hire public health interns and pay them like their peers in other medical fields, failure to which they would call for downing of tools within two weeks.

They spoke at Kenyatta University during the opening of the First Caravan Mentorship program for all public health students and also launch of the local union chapter.

Ashira also called for higher budgetary allocation to the health sector, noting that the amount of Ksh138 billion given in the last budget is too low compared to Education which got over 700 billion in the National Budget.

“This country does not care about preventive healthcare. If you go to public health facilities, 70 percent of the illnesses causing are communicable and preventable and that’s the work of public health workers,” maintained Ashira.

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He added: “While we appreciate that education is equally important, we must also say that you cannot go to a classroom and study when you are sick. There is need for increases allocation of resources to health.”

Ashira pointed out that there has been a problem of absorption of universal health coverage officers who have been on contractual terms for upto six years, a thing that he said must change.

“These officers have been on long term contracts illegally. We are demanding that the government releases the money and ensure the UHC officers are absorbed forthwith,” Ashira affirmed.

At the same time, the official said training of public health officials should be done by professionals qualified in that field, noting that a number of lecturers in public health colleges have not studied the subject.

“We are putting all training institutions and universities on notice and asking them to do the right thing and employ those who are qualified in the field of public health, not characters masquerading as qualified persons,”he cautioned.

The Union national treasurer Mohamed Ali said the government must place more emphasis on prevention of diseases and hence the need to raise the budgetary allocation to public health from the current Ksh18 billion.

Student leaders echoed the sentiments of the unionists, noting that they go through a lot of struggles while on internship for lack of pay unlike their colleagues in medicine, pharmacists and clinicians.

By John Kamau