Explained: How staff shortages are disrupting care in Kenya's hospitals

Olivia Okoth, CEO, Commonwealth College of Medical and Related Studies and Seth Panyako, Secretary General, Kenya National Union of Nurses during an interview at Spice FM, August 14,2026. [Benard Orwongo, Standard]

Patients continue to suffer the effects of challenges facing Kenya’s health sector, as stakeholders blame both the national and county governments for failing to give healthcare enough attention despite its importance.

Despite government promises to improve healthcare, stakeholders say gaps in staffing and funding continue to cripple many public hospitals.

According to Olivia Okoth, Chief Executive Officer of Commonwealth College of Medical and Related Studies, Kenya does not have enough health workers to meet the growing number of patients seeking treatment in both public and private facilities.

“There is a disparity between the available labour force and the number of patients we have to handle every day, the equipment available and the kinds of illnesses we have to manage,” said Okoth during an interview on Spice FM on Friday.

Echoing her remarks, Kenya National Union of Nurses Secretary General Seth Panyako said the shortage of health workers has led to long queues in public hospitals, with nurses forced to attend to many patients at the same time.

This, he says, leaves health workers with little time to give patients individual attention and has also contributed to burnout.

“There are three nurses for every 10,000 people in the population. That is the ratio in the Eastern Mediterranean and Africa. The minimum should be 25 instead of three,” said Panyako.

According to Okoth, one of the main problems is that the government has failed to employ enough trained health workers after they complete their internships, despite training institutions continuing to produce qualified health workers

“Training institutions are doing their best to train people to standard across all cadres, but the trained personnel are not being absorbed to help in the medical field,” said Okoth.

“The need is clearly there, but the decision to address the need is not there. There is no prioritisation in budget allocations, which itself is not enough,” she added.

According to Panyako, the government needs to set aside money specifically for hiring health workers, just as it does for other essential services.

“In the health sector, no one is purposely budgeting for human resources, like it is done in the National Police Service where after pass-out, all officers are absorbed,” he said.

He added that the situation has been made harder by the devolved health system, where responsibilities are shared between the national and county governments.

“We have a fragmented system of government where health has been disbanded and taken to the county governments,” said Panyako.

Panyako said the shortage of health workers became clear during the Covid-19 pandemic, when the national government identified staffing gaps in counties and hired about 8,700 Universal Health Coverage (UHC) workers.

However, he said efforts to employ the workers on permanent and pensionable terms have faced challenges, despite Sh8.6 billion being set aside for their employment.

“Money has been allocated, but these health workers have not been given employment letters. Duale went further to change their payslip to read P&P,” said Panyako.

He also criticised the government for making promises without providing enough money to implement them.

“We were promised the hiring of 5,000 nurses in this financial year, but there was no allocation of funds. Health is a shared function and there is a responsibility to ensure that it operates optimally,” he said.

The shortage of health workers and inadequate funding have also contributed to repeated strikes by nurses, clinical officers, laboratory technicians and other health workers over pay, contracts and working conditions.

The strikes often disrupt services, leaving patients to deal with delays and limited access to treatment when they are already in need of care.

Services such as immunisation, emergency care and maternal health monitoring can be affected when health facilities are disrupted, putting vulnerable patients at greater risk.

“We do not have structures in Kenya that work for us in the health sector,” said Okoth.

Panyako, however, said counties could provide better healthcare if they received enough resources and support from the national government.

“If county governments are given more resources, they can do better than what the national government has done in the health sector,” he said.

For Okoth, solving the problems in the health sector will require more than policy changes and increased funding.

“We need political goodwill and an honest conversation as a country about health,” she said.