Kenya Union of Clinical Officers (KUCO) Secretary General George Gibore criticised the decision to merge Clinical Officer's Council established by an Act of Parliament with the doctors council.
Clinical Officers Council regulates clinical officers in terms of training and practise. The council also supervises training of clinical officers, registration and practise of all clinical officers in addition to handling malpractice.
Gibore said the council does not depend on the exchequer to run its affairs despite being a state entity. He said it gets money from members and students in training institutions.
"These institutions get millions, for example when students do indexing, when doing exams, internship and annual licensing of practitioners," said Gibore. "I doubt whether they will be affected".
Miskellah further commended KMPDC saying the body has been key in actualisation of Universal Health Coverage (UHC), by ensuring hospitals offer quality care.
Without funding, he said, "Without KMPDC, anything can go, anybody can put on a lab-coat and call themselves a doctor, even a butcher can call themselves 'daktari', even a cleaner in hospital can call themselves daktari. That is why the moment we start to strangle KMPDC with lack of funds, we undermine Kenyans' rights to healthcare."
Unlike clinical officers who are adamant about merging health bodies, doctors are pushing to have a body regulating all healthcare professionals.
Clinical officers strongly oppose the merger of health workers regulatory bodies saying each should be regulated by an agency with knowledge of its operations for example nurses should be regulated by nurses' council, whereas clinical officers by clinical council.
"We have an Act of Parliament that establishes the bodies and if you want to say that you want to merge clinical officers, doctors and nurses, this is a move backward because we have seen countries including US coming to benchmark with us for self-regulation," said Gibore.
"Clinical officers will resist any proposal to merge clinical officers with other cadres because know that is a backward move," he vowed.