The National Secretary General of the Kenya Environmental Health and Public Health practitioners (KEHPHPU), Brown Ashira, speaking to the press in Garissa./FILE




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Public Health Officers in the country want the counties to post their qualified members to Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) departments.

They have taken issue with doctors and nurses who they claim deal with curative measures in health but have since invaded their departments and taken leadership roles in disease prevention areas, which is their field.

Speaking during a meeting in Garissa led by the Kenya Environmental Health and Public Health practitioners' national secretary general, Brown Ashira, they said for a long time they have been overshadowed from key institutions and departments under IPC by fellow colleagues in the curative field.

The Public Health Officers (PHOs) claim doctors and nurses who essentially deal with curative measures in health, have invaded their departments and taken leadership roles in disease prevention areas, which is their field.

“Infection prevention and control 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, 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 Infection 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 PHO to meet the World Health Organization 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 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 side-lining during promotions and the management of the Facility Improvement Fund.

“As public health officers, we collect and mobilise revenue. It is sad that we collect revenue and then the FIF Act revenue is not ring fenced. We mobilise medical certificates, we give yellow fever vaccines, enforce food hygiene licenses and other resources. It is immaterial for somebody else to say that a subcounty 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 prevention. We are the only people leading in prevention and we can not 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 the county is faced with frequent disease outbreaks mainly as a result of cross border migration from the neighbouring countries who 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, cholera in very large numbers, currently, and we have Dengue fever and measles. We are also currently investigating a polio case in Dadaab,” Kilonzo said.