There is only One Justified Vacancy in the Medical Services Ministry

Josef Rudolf Mengele was a German SS officer and a physician in the Nazi concentration camp, called Auschwitz.  He was notoriously and ultimately responsible for the deaths of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of victims, and was famed for his human experiments, especially on children. Such experiments earned him the nick-name, “The Angel of Death”.

Mengele’s work, approach to anti-Semitism, and his overall role and duties at Auschwitz gave him the distinction in medical history of being known as both a monster and the father of systematic medical genocide. Indeed his very name was added to the English language to mean to maim, mutilate, and disfigure. To be mangled is a state that depicts an utter ripping apart of oneself.

Yet Mengele, was a medical officer. In his field, he distinguished himself, albeit with horrors, nevertheless, he was a qualified medical practitioner. In fact, Mengele was a decorated officer, having saved the lives of 3 German soldiers.  For all his failings, Mengele’s contribution to the medical field did bring a new perspective to scientific research. Mengele’s work with twins especially, is quite astonishing.

In this concentration camp of a medical sector in Kenya what indeed can we say our own Mangler of Medical services is worthy of noting? What indeed is Professor Peter Anyang Nyong’o worthy off, in the medical field? Let’s applaud the one person responsible for maiming and mutilating the health sector single handedly.

You see dear Kenyans, this doctors’ strike, which, surprisingly receives very little media attention, is the death knell for the health sector as we used to know it. There must come a time, when mediocrity is unacceptable in entirety. It’s no secret that public health facilities are in dire need of refurbishment, that we need even more doctors, nurses and healthcare professionals, it is no secret that we need an abundance of resources in order to meet the needs of this country and rather than address these immediate issues, our very own Mangeler of Medical services chooses instead to fire staff, correction, to fire Doctors.

In a world where the richest nations on the planet are actively recruiting and training medical staff, a third world political scientist in a third world decrepit nation where not even third world doctors can earn a decent living, chooses to fire the only qualified medical staff available in the country, and he seems to have gotten away with it.

In his mangled, nay strangled, view of medical administration, Kenyan Doctors are plenty. Never mind that the doctors themselves say they are too few.  In fact, should they not apply for these vacancies, the strangler of medical services proposes to hire foreign doctors, from countries like say, Uganda or South Africa.

In addition to this, he chooses to increase the rates of contributions to N.H.I.F despite protests from COTU and a decision by the Industrial Court to stop the increase of NHIF rates.

It is at this point that we must examine the mind of a destructive man, in the throes of his art. How can one purport to fire the only doctors this entire country has produced and retained, only to desire to hire doctors from a country that is considered less developed than Kenya? And how can one actually hire those foreign doctors when they currently earn more than their Kenyan counterparts? Doctors in Uganda recently received a 400% pay rise. I am quite sure our recently fired Kenyan doctors are headed to Uganda for work themselves, an exodus of Imhoteps!

Is medicine so simple a field of study and professionalism that any sort of bushwhacker can come along and figure out how to manage the healthcare for 40 million people, regardless of what the qualified professionals view as qualitative and quantitative palliative care?

If so, why can’t this particular government with its two esteemed principles simple find a far more intelligent gibbon to do this job? Or any monkey for that matter.

There really is only one clear and obvious vacancy in the Medical Services Ministry and it doesn’t take a genius to realize that though psychiatry is advised rather than decapitation in a human being, this situation calls for rather drastic measures. Someone fire this guy, please.