Kenya Largely Falls Short in the Number of Recommended Anesthetists

The Council of Governors’ (CoG) Health Committee has raised fears over an acute shortage of anesthetists in Kenya.

Mohamed Kuti, the Chair of COG’s Health Committee, noted that there are only 788 anesthetists in Kenya which is jeopardizing the delivery of standard healthcare services in the Country.

“The ratio of physician anesthesiologists stands at 0.44 per 100,000 people against the recommended four by the World Health Organization (WHO)” said Kuti through a statement read by Nyeri County Health Minister, Ms Racheal Kamau, in his absence.

Mohamed Kuti, who is also the Governor of Isiolo County, noted that Kenya faces a huge gap in the number of physicians providing anaesthesia, and that the Country still had a long way to go to cover the deficiency.

Kuti’s speech was read during a function by the Kenya Registered Nurse Anesthetists (KRNA).

Marginalized sections of Kenya suffer the lack of anesthetists, with Counties such as Mandera having only two.

Samson Miriti, the KRNA national chairman, said County Governments are yet to embrace nurse anesthetists.

“We hope this will change as we now have definition of roles and responsibilities that will help counties create a job description to use in recruitment processes,” Mr Miriti said.

Miriti noted that nurse anesthetists have for long been locked out of call allowance benefits despite the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) passing a recommendation in support in the year 2015.

Miriti noted that the compensation had not been effected in all the 47 Counties and requested for a just compensation for the specialized services they were providing.