Health workers are the Star’s Person of the Year

Dr Stephen Mogusu became the symbol of the sacrifices healthcare workers make – and the risks they are exposed to – in service to fellow Kenyans.

Mogusu, aged 28, died of Covid-19 on December 7. He likely contracted the disease from a patient in an isolation centre in Machakos county where he worked.

The Kenya Medical Practitioners, Doctors and Dentists Union said at the time of his death Mogusu had not been paid for five months. He had no medical cover.

He left behind a widow, a five-month-old child and a hospital bill of more than Sh800,000. The union deplored his unnecessary death as “too steep a price for patriotism”,

A message Mogusu sent to fellow doctors days before he died captured the desperate situation of health workers in public service. It went viral.

“My dear colleagues, let me take this opportunity to admonish you today to get your pay or get out while you can, with your health or life intact,” he said.

On the day Mogusu died, doctors were to start a nationwide strike demanding personal protective equipment or PPE, insurance, risk allowance and better pay. But they had called off the strike the previous day for two weeks to allow negotiations with the government.

On the same day, nurses and clinicians embarked on an indefinite nationwide strike for better terms of service. The industrial action disrupted services in all public hospitals.

Patients were turned away and those admittedwere  prematurely discharged to go die or, if they could afford it, seek services in private hospitals.

A strike by health workers bang in the middle of a deadly pandemic should worry a government that has the interest of its citizens at heart. But not in Kenya.

President Uhuru Kenyatta was silent. His government was focused on BBI and not the lives of citizens. State House announced Uhuru would be going on a month-long holiday.

His handshake partner, ODM leader Raila Odinga, drew fire when he suggested that health workers were being insensitive by striking.

“Doctors need to be more understanding. We are in a crisis at the moment. People are dying; it is not only doctors who are dying. We are in a dire situation as the economy is hurting during the Covid-19 pandemic,” the former prime minister said.

Raila is quite likely to run for president – but guess whose votes he won’t get?

But the hurting economy could not stop the BBI reggae. Not even the deaths of doctors and other medical workers.

That seemed to be the attitude of the entire political class. National Assembly Majority Whip and Navakholo Jubilee MP Emmanuel Wangwe said doctors were being unreasonable.

“We do value the lives of our doctors but much more we value the lives of all Kenyans. We are in middle of a pandemic crisis and we must all work together by supporting each other. The [government] of Uhuru has always supported the doctors,” he tweeted.

Health workers are poorly paid, overworked and often lack even basic equipment – some are even forced to reuse PPEs, which is dangerous and forbidden by international standards. 

The Covid-19 pandemic has further exposed the perils facing health workers, celebrated as frontline soldiers in the war against the pandemic.

Many of them cannot afford the medical services they offer their patients.

Days before Mogusu died, KMPDU acting secretary general Dr Chibanzi Mwachonda had appealed to Kenyans of goodwill to contribute money for Mogusu’s medical expenses at Kenyatta University Teaching, Referral and Research Hospital.

If Kenya has made strides in fighting Covid-19, it is largely thanks to the health professionals who have worked tirelessly under difficult conditions to save lives.

The 2010 Constitution declares in Article 4, ” Every person has the right to the highest attainable standard of health, which includes the right to healthcare services, including reproductive healthcare.”

This right is only enjoyed by the people who have money. It is impossible to deliver on that right without well-trained and dedicated healthcare workers whose welfare is properly taken care of by the government.

Healthcare professionals point out that Kenya Defence Forces personnel have far better medical care and coverage. They are even airlifted for treatment. Why not health workers? Why the difference?

Yet strikes by health professionals over poor terms of work are a permanent feature of their work in Kenya.

During the launch of the Jubilee Coalition ahead of the 2013 election, Deputy President William Ruto made a promise:

“Doctors and healthcare workers will be properly paid, no woman will pay for maternity care, no Kenyan will travel abroad for medical treatment, our teachers will be paid and our policemen will all live in modern housing.”

As the tragic death of Dr Mogusu shows, the Jubilee promise remains just that,  a promise, about eight years on.

The Star salutes all health workers who, despite the dismal conditions in which they are forced to work, all have done everything they could to save the lives of fellow citizens, particularly during the Covid-19 pandemic.

You are true heroes of our land!