Nurses quit Uasin Gishu hospitals for US, Canada, Europe jobs

At least 120 out of 500 nurses working in Uasin Gishu county hospitals have sought greener pastures overseas in the past three years, the Kenya National Union of Nurses has said.

The union’s Uasin Gishu branch secretary, Kleen Mutai, said that the majority of the nurses have migrated to the US, Australia, Canada, the UK and Finland, among other European countries.

Speaking to the media in Eldoret town, he said levels three and four hospitals were most hit by the exodus of well-trained and skilled healthcare service providers in the region.

According to Mutai, poor remuneration, lack of proper career progression, understaffing in hospitals and poor working environments are some of the reasons forcing the medics to seek greener pastures.

He added that those exiting the service from level three and four hospitals in search of jobs abroad are aged between 30 and 45 years.

The unionist regretted that most of the medics who have undergone specialised training in critical areas of healthcare like ICU professionals have left the country, causing a huge shortage of staff in the county’s 171 hospitals.

“The number of nurses exiting the county-run hospitals to seek greener pastures overseas is increasing at an alarming rate yearly due to the high pay the hospitals in Europe are offering compared to what they are earning in the country,” Mutai said.

He called on Uasin Gishu government to allocate more funds to the health sector to hire more nurses to plug the staffing gaps in the majority of the hospitals across the county.

Mutai termed as worrying the health worker to patient ratio, especially in level two public hospitals in far flung areas of the expansive county.

He said that one dispensary was being manned by one person and yet the people seeking medical services at the facility were nearly 30 per day.

“You find that when the nurse in charge of the said dispensary is sick for a week the facility will remain closed until he or she reports back to duty after recovery, thereby causing inconvenience to those seeking services at the hospital,” noted Mutai.

He has called on Governor Jonathan Bii’s administration to address the acute nurses’ shortage in public hospitals to bridge the patient to medic ratio in the region.