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Health Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale\/MOH\/X<\/p>\nHealth Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale\/MOH\/X<\/p>\n
Health Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale has announced a sweeping policy shift that will see Kenya stop renewing licences for most foreign doctors, saying the move is necessary to protect jobs for thousands of unemployed Kenyan medical professionals.<\/p>\n
Duale said the government will only allow foreign doctors to practise in Kenya if they possess specialised skills that are not available locally, and only if they come from within the East African Community (EAC).\u00a0<\/p>\n
He clarified that basic cadres such as medical officers, dentists and other general practitioners will no longer be licensed if they are foreigners.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are not renewing the licences of foreign doctors,\u201d Duale said during press conference Wednesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose from within the East African Community are not affected, but even then, we will only allow specialists whose skills are not found in our country.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Cabinet Secretary said the decision was informed by the growing number of Kenyan doctors who remain jobless despite years of costly training funded by taxpayers.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He noted that the government spends billions of shillings training doctors through university education, paid internships, postgraduate programmes and specialist training, only for many of them to remain unemployed.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor many years, parents everywhere I go tell me, \u2018Minister, my son or daughter has finished medical school and internship, but they have no job,\u2019\u201d Duale said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Why should foreigners come to treat Kenyans when our own doctors are at home without jobs?\u201d<\/p>\n
Duale revealed that since the January licence renewal period began, he has personally rejected the renewal applications of more than 200 foreign doctors. <\/p>\n
Some of those rejected, he said, had previously been banned by medical regulators in their countries of origin, turning Kenya into what he described as an easy destination for unqualified or discredited practitioners.<\/p>\n
\u201cKenya was becoming a place where somebody would just walk in and open a clinic,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The Health CS also singled out private hospitals for employing large numbers of foreign doctors, citing a recent meeting with a private facility where he found that nearly all doctors were from Egypt.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He directed such institutions to prioritise Kenyan professionals.<\/p>\n
\u201cI told them to go and employ Kenyan doctors,\u201d Duale said, drawing a parallel with former US President Donald Trump\u2019s \u2018America First\u2019 policy.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cTrump said America first. I am saying Kenya first.\u201d<\/p>\n
While acknowledging that the policy may be unpopular in some quarters, Duale insisted it was guided by data from the Director of Medical Services, which shows that Kenya has a surplus of certain medical specialities.<\/p>\n
He exempted mission and faith-based hospitals from the blanket directive, saying they may be allowed to hire a limited number of foreign specialists to keep critical services running, especially in remote areas.\u00a0<\/p>\n
However, he was firm that public and private hospitals must prioritise Kenyan doctors.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is not a choice,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is why we have medical schools in this country. That is why parents sacrifice to take their children to medical school.\u201d<\/p>\n
Duale said the policy aligns with President William Ruto\u2019s manifesto pledge to expand employment opportunities for healthcare workers and assured parents and young professionals that the government is committed to ensuring Kenyan doctors are given first priority in serving the nation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Health Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale\/MOH\/X Health Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale has announced a sweeping policy shift that will…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9855,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[6948,6946,6947,3144,80,6949,98,100,101,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-9854","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-kenya","8":"tag-doctors","9":"tag-duale","10":"tag-foreign","11":"tag-health","12":"tag-kenya","13":"tag-license","14":"tag-star-news","15":"tag-star-news-kenya","16":"tag-the-star","17":"tag-the-star-newspaper"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9854","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9854"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9854\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}