Lawmakers were yesterday informed how poor working relations between two Principal Secretaries in the Ministry of Health contribute to the challenges in the health sector.

Legislators also heard that multiplicity of laws, several regulatory authorities and lack of clearly defined roles in the ministry have negatively impacted service delivery.

The Presidential Taskforce on Health, chaired by Prof Khama Rogo, that had appeared before the National Assembly’s Health Committee, chaired by Endebess MP Robert Pukose, revealed that Medical Services PS Harry Kimtai and Public Health and Professional Standards PS Mary Muriuki do not talk to each other.

This, he said, makes it hard for them to  operationalise preventive and curative health services.

Said Rogo: “People hardly talk to each other at the State Department of Health, and State Department of Public Health. It is like Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo”

He added: “We have evidence that what we are doing as a country is not building a strong health sector.”

Bad relationship

MPs heard that the bad relationship between the two had brought uncertainty over the position of Director General of Health currently held by Dr Patrick Amoth.

Seme MP James Nyikal and Kitutu Chachae South MP Anthony Kibagendi supported  the task force, saying that interference from the Executive has been the biggest problems facing the sector.

Nyikal said lack of clear roles in the Ministry had been  evident during the recent outbreak of M-Pox as daily briefs that were supposed to be  issued by Dr Amoth, the senior most technical person in the ministry, were being  issued by PS Muriuki.

Nyikal: “Dr Amoth was an employer of Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, while serving at the World Health Organisation (WHO)  but back here at home , he was kept acting  Director General for years, we should know what he should do.”

Kibagendi claimed that interference by the Executive and lack of clear job roles affected implementation of programmes within the ministry.

He said: “The appointment of Director General took forever. We kept asking. But we know there is a lot of political interference, and clashes within departments reporting to  him (Amoth).”

He added: “We know the issues you’ve had on M-Pox because of the  lack of job description within the ministry.”

The task force which had appeared before the committee to provide  an update on human resource in health also raised concerns that medical officers’ frequent unrests, conflicting laws and inaccurate data have also contributed to the deteriorating health situation.

The task force members  told the MPs that the existence of too many laws in the health sector has made it difficult to manage healthcare workers, there are more than 43 cadres.

While proposing that some of the laws should be removed to allow smooth operationalisation of the sector, Kibagendi regretted that distribution and qualification of health workers in respective cadres was not clear.

He said: “It is time to consolidate the laws and leave out  some ”

The task force disclosed that it had received requests from unions to have a centralised body- Health Service Commission to manage health workers’ issues like what the  Teachers Service Commission (TSC), Judicial Service Commission and National Police Service Commission (NPSC) do.

In the dark

He said that there is a need to find a way of standardising Human Resource management.

On implementation of the Collective Bargaining Agreements (CBA) agreed upon by unions, Rogo told the committee that they are still in the dark as to how they were arrived at.

 He said: “Nobody has full details of how the CBAs were formulated as some of them were negotiated 50 years ago. Up to now we do not know who knows who owns the CBAs. 

A member of the committee, Christine Okoth, raised concerns that the country lacks health data, and the little in its disposal is held by donors- intra health and USAID.