In Kenya, the nursing profession – once considered a job-secure career choice – is now grappling with a serious oversupply problem at both the diploma and degree levels.

Thousands of qualified nurses are jobless, despite the country’s continued need for healthcare services, yet it is one of those professions that cannot be replaced by artificial intelligence (AI). In the recent past, I have received many volunteering requests from licensed nurses, prompting me to write this article.

The Kenya Health Workforce Report 2023 reveals that over 42,000 trained nurses are seeking employment, a figure that grows annually. This mismatch between training and employment has alarmed both the public and health sector stakeholders.

Over the past 20 years, Kenya has seen a sharp increase in nursing training institutions. Government campaigns, especially during the HIV epidemic, and later the Covid-19 pandemic, encouraged students to join the healthcare profession. Many new institutions, including the 50-plus universities in Kenya, are now offering nursing programmes. Kenya Medical Training College (KMTC) and several private middle-level colleges have also expanded their intake, leading to a surge in nursing graduates.

While this move initially sought to resolve staffing shortages in health facilities, especially in rural areas, it has now created a glut of jobless professionals. According to the Nursing Council of Kenya (NCK), about 10,000 students graduate with nursing qualifications annually, but fewer than 3,000 are absorbed into the workforce. The NCK further reports that more than 40 percent of registered nurses are either unemployed or underemployed.

Budget constraints have worsened the situation. Counties have frozen hiring due to limited funds, leaving facilities understaffed despite the abundance of trained nurses. Urban centres such as Nairobi have become oversaturated, while rural areas continue to face shortages because of poor infrastructure and limited local government resources.

Several factors contribute to this crisis. Chief among them is the imbalance between training output and the public health sector’s employment capacity. Training institutions continue admitting large numbers of students, yet employment quotas have not kept pace.

This situation has also prompted a significant brain drain. In 2023 alone, over 5,000 nurses left Kenya for jobs abroad. International deployment programmes, like Kenya’s recent deal with Saudi Arabia to export nurses, only offer temporary relief, and they undermine Kenya’s healthcare capacity by draining its skilled workforce.

The irony remains: public hospitals are still short-staffed and struggle with high patient-to-nurse ratios, despite the availability of trained nurses. This not only affects service delivery but also undermines universal health coverage goals.

At the root of the crisis is poor workforce planning.

With proper reforms, the country can harness this untapped workforce to strengthen its healthcare system and promote public well-being. However, students yearning for nursing courses should reconsider and broaden their career options.

The writer is a Professor of Chemistry at the University of Eldoret, a higher education Expert, and a quality assurance Consultant; okothmdo@uoeld.ac.ke