Mailu quashes PS decision to allow foreign medical camps

Health secretary Cleopa Mailu has clashed with principal secretary Nicholas Muraguri over the latter’s recent decision to allow certain foreign medical personnel to hold treatment camps in Kenya despite a ban imposed by sector regulator.

Dr Muraguri last month overruled the Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentists Board’s (KMPDB) suspension of the camps and allowed select private facilities to operate despite the ban.

Dr Mailu said the ban was still on as directed by the board and not even his office can lift it.

“Nobody else but the KMPDB has the mandate to lift the ban,” he said.

The minister’s directive came after several private hospitals defied the rule and held medical camps (clinics) with the help of doctors from India and Mauritius barely a month after the KMPDB ban.

Nairobi Women’s Hospital, MP Shah and Kijabe Mission Hospital are among the institutions that have reportedly defied the ban and held the camps.

Nairobi Women’s Hospital, which is on the spot for conducting a one- week spine clinic at their Adams Arcade branch in Nairobi, said that it had permission from the PS.

The hospital’s chief executive, Sam Thenya, said it always got licences from the medical board whenever foreign medics came for clinics at their facilities, but failed to prove if indeed they got one for the June spine clinic.

The hospital ostensibly relied on a letter that the PS wrote to Dr Thenya granting a “temporary waiver of medical camps suspension” to the hospital. Outpatient consultations during the camp cost Sh1,500.

The law requires that any foreign medic practising in Kenya, regardless of the duration, should acquire a licence from KMPDB - the regulator.

Last month, KMPDB stopped further medical camps by foreign doctors fearing exploitation of patients and arbitrary referral of Kenyans to hospitals abroad, especially India.

KMPDB chairman Prof George Magoha said the mandate of licensing foreign medics lies with the board, but on “extraneous circumstances” the ministry can intervene.

“The mandate lies with the board. The ministry may come in (after all we work for government), but it does not reverse our stand against the foreign medical camps,” said Prof Magoha.

Dr Muraguri declined to comment on the matter and instead referred us to the board.

The board’s decision was reached at after many surgical conditions that do not require special operations were referred to India in return for kickbacks of up to Sh200,000 per referral.

READ: Medical camps by foreign doctors stopped over referrals controversy

Dr Thenya said that although patients have the right of choice, he is “totally against medical tourism”. He said that the Indian doctor, Viral Shah, came to “review” his own patients who have been going to India after his services.

“The suspension threw everyone in a spin and since we had already organised the clinic we gave Dr Shah the space he needed to review his patients and not recruit new ones to India,” said Dr Thenya.

“I will not deny. I was running a clinic during the suspension and the PS was aware. I am going to expand to avail (sic) the same services here, ” he added.

Dr Shah, who was on his way to the airport just after completing the camp, said he had conducted similar camps for a year now, within which about 25 Kenyans have been referred to India for “further review”.

MP Shah Hospital chief executive Anup Das said that the hospital had organised a camp but terminated it and informed the foreign doctors immediately after the suspension.

Dr Mailu said he had received reviewed guidelines for foreign doctors from KMPDB, which will be launched within the next three weeks.

“The new guidelines will control medical camps and the referral system both internally and in foreign hospitals. This should help remove rogue doctors from our system,” he said.