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Kenya

To provide essential health care for all people, the World Health Organization recommends a minimum of 23 doctors, nurses, and midwives for every 10,000 people. Although Kenya trains enough health workers to meet this standard, it has only one doctor and 12 nurses and midwives per 10,000 people, little over half of what it needs. Kenya’s shortage of health workers is driven, in part, by health worker emigration for higher pay and better working environments. The shortage is particularly acute in rural areas, where, according to Kenya’s National HIV Strategic Plan, nearly 80% of Kenyans live and an estimated one million people are living with HIV.

Recognizing Kenya’s need for short- and long-term staffing solutions to build and maintain the health workforce, IntraHealth International has collaborated with the Kenyan government and partners to develop innovative ways to recruit, train, place, and retain skilled health workers where they are most needed.

Between 2004 and 2009, IntraHealth led the global Capacity Project. Through this project, IntraHealth collaborated with the Kenyan Ministry of Health and health sector leaders to design, implement, and evaluate an emergency hiring plan that created a model for fair and rapid recruitment procedures and trained 873 health workers with up-to-date HIV clinical skills. These workers were then deployed to 219 health facilities in rural and underserved areas across the country.

To encourage better performance, morale, and retention among rural health workers, the project undertook a work climate improvement initiative at ten health facilities. The initiative gauged and examined employee job satisfaction rates, and proposed various low-cost solutions—such as structural and aesthetic improvements to the   facilities—to make health centers more accessible to patients, encourage staff commitment and pride, and assist in the provision of high-quality services.

The project also worked with the ministry to draft and finalize a three-year strategic plan to improve the hiring and allocation of health workers and assisted in the development of a national policy for training health workers.

Capacity Kenya: Creating Better Workplaces, Health Systems, and Equipped Health Workers

Building on those successes, IntraHealth currently leads a five-year project, Capacity Kenya, funded by USAID. The project helps to remedy the health worker shortage and meet the needs of the health workforce by:

• Working to quickly hire and increase the total number of qualified health workers at facilities in Kenya’s North Eastern Province in collaboration with the Ministry of Health and Pathfinder International
• Providing and installing the iHRIS Suite—an Open Source software tool developed by IntraHealth that helps health sector managers assess staffing problems and design and evaluate effective solutions. The project trains local staff to use this data in decision-making and provides technical support for planning and for the hiring, tracking, and management of health workers at facilities in Kenya’s eight provincial centers.
• Developing a cost-effective text messaging system that allows the ministry to quickly send health workers important administrative and human resources-related updates
• Working with the Ministry of Health to create a new performance appraisal system, including a toolkit that allows national and local health facility managers and supervisors to better evaluate themselves and the workers they supervise
• Collaborating with the Ministry for the Development of Northern Kenya and Other Arid Lands to recruit more students into the health care field; provide scholarships for pre-service and in-service education to encourage recipients to seek employment (or remain employed) at health facilities in underserved areas; and offer more health workers distance learning and professional development opportunities
• Helping national and regional partners assess the current state of health training in Kenya and devise plans to improve training curricula and systems
• Creating and supporting a Center for Excellence in Family Planning at the Kenya Medical Training College in Kitui to encourage high-quality teaching of family planning, as well as to improve the facilities and administration of the college and the quality of clinical practica geared toward family planning.

Past Projects

• The Capacity Project (funded by USAID, led by IntraHealth)
• PRIME II Project (funded by USAID, led by IntraHealth)
• AMKENI (funded by USAID, supporting partner to the Extending Service Delivery Project)
• ACQUIRE Project (funded by USAID, supporting partner  to Engenderhealth)

Contact

Meshack Ndolo
Chief of Party
Capacity Kenya
mndolo@intrahealth.org
254-20-3746845

More information is available in the country brief.