Environmental and Public Health officers have decried being overshadowed by key institutions and departments under Infections, Prevention and Control (IPC) by medical colleagues in the curative field.
The Public Health Officers (PHOs) claim that doctors and nurses who essentially deal with curative measures in the healthcare system have invaded their departments and taken leadership roles in disease prevention areas, which is their turf.
Speaking during a meeting in Garissa County led by the national General Secretary of the Kenya Environmental Health and Public Health practitioners (KEHPHPU), Brown Ashira, the PHOs want counties to post their qualified members to IPC departments.
“Infections, prevention and control (IPC) is a reserve of public health, primary healthcare is also a reserve of public health. We know there are colleagues in the clinical areas who have occupied IPC and we are putting them on notice and we are telling them to relinquish those positions,” Ashira said.
“We are asking the Chief Officer in charge to post qualified PHOs to be in charge of Infections, Prevention and Control and also the public health department in Garissa. We cannot allow intruders, people who masquerade as public health officers, coming in to be in charge of public health departments,” he added.
The union further wants the Garissa county government to recruit enough PHOs to meet the World Health Organization (WHO) recommended ratio to population.
“Garissa county government has failed to employ the number of public health officers required to fight diseases. As we speak, there is an outbreak of polio in this county but we only have 60 public health officers serving a population of 800,000 people. The World Health Organization (WHO) ratios are very clear that one PHO is supposed to serve around 6,500 – 7,000 people,” Ashira said.
Among other issues the PHOs are raising include alleged sidelining during promotions and management of the Facility Improvement Fund (FIF).
“As public health officers, we collect and mobilize revenue. It is very sad that we collect revenue and then the FIF act that revenue is not ring-fenced. We mobilize medical certificates, give yellow fever vaccines, enforce food hygiene licenses and provide other resources. It is very immaterial for somebody else to say that a sub-county PHO cannot access these funds,” said Juma Mahero, the KEHPHPU’s national vice chairperson.
“We need our officers to be signatories to the FIF just like the act says. We have curative and preventive. We are the only people leading in prevention and we cannot miss out on the FIF because we are generating a lot of revenue,” he added.
Antony Kilonzo, the Garissa branch secretary general for KEHPHPU said that Garissa County is faced with frequent disease outbreaks mainly as a result of cross-border migration from the neighbouring countries which may not have consistent vaccinations for their population.
“The biggest issue in this county is the frequent outbreak of diseases. You will find that we have outbreaks of polio, we have outbreaks of measles and cholera in very large numbers currently and we have Dengue fever and measles. We are also currently investigating a polio case in Dadaab Sub County,” Kilonzo said.
By Erick Kyalo
