Allowances for Cuba-based Kenyan doctors increased to Ksh.144,000

The government has increased salaries for Kenyan doctors undergoing training in Cuba by three fold after complaints of bad working conditions and remuneration.

Speaking to the media, Health Cabinet Secretary Sicily Kariuki announced that the medics will now receive a monthly stipend of Ksh.144,000, up from Ksh.50,800.

The CS, who was responding to demands by Kenya Medical practitioners and Dentist Union (KMPDU) for the immediate termination of the training programme in Cuba said that Ministry of Health sent officials to Cuba to access the welfare of Kenyan doctors.

In a statement sent to newsrooms, KPMDU had lamented how the Kenyan-Cuba arrangement has left Kenyan doctors vulnerable, frustrated, and in deplorable conditions.

The doctors further said they had constantly expressed their frustrations with the manner in which the government has withheld or completely failed to pay their living expenses in a foreign country.

CS Kariuki however noted that ministry officials will continue to monitor the outcome as well as to see to any other emerging issues.

The fight to terminate the Cuba program started after the death of Dr. Hamisi Ali Juma who committed suicide barely six months in Cuba.

Juma was one of the 50 Kenyan doctors in Cuba sponsored by the government to study Family Medicine as a specialisation.

His family narrated how he was constantly complaining of poor working conditions in Cuba adding that at one point he even lodged a formal request to return home but nothing came of it.

Citizen Digital also received a distress letter signed by 40 doctors in Cuba including Juma before his death.

The letter was sent to the Parliamentary Committee on Health, pleading with the legislators to address what the doctors termed as “numerous challenges that have gone unanswered.”

According to the letter, the doctors constantly asked the Health Ministry for details of the course, accommodation and welfare in vain.

CS Kariuki now says that the student doctors have since been posted to various clinics across Havana for their post-graduate training.