Medical board arrests quack doctors, closes hospitals in Kisumu

A joint Dentist Board Inspection Unit led by Chief executive officer Kenya medical practitioners and dentist board, Daniel Yumbya (In white Shirt) and Dr. Were Onyino (In Checked Shirt) shows how the badges should be displayed at Maseno Hospital. The Dentist Board team urged medical practitioners to wear badges in order to give patients easy time identifying them. PICTURE TAKEN ON 23-02-2016 BY PHILLIP ORWA

The medical board has arrested 15 quack doctors in Kisumu and Siaya counties.

The Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentist Board also closed down 26 hospitals for not meetings standards.

Chief Executive Officer Daniel Yumbya said they are currently conducting inspections in Nyanza region and so far, they have inspected 53 facilities in Siaya and 51 in Kisumu.

He warned that action will be taken against health practitioners who close their facilities on noticing that inspections are going on in their areas. "We don't take it lightly when people close and hide when we come.

Let them wait for us so that we tell them what is wrong and recommend corrective measures," said Dr Yumbya. The board has also directed all medical facilities to ensure all health professional have badges identifying them at their places of work.

Yumbya said it is mandatory for all health workers to put on their identification badges to make it easier for patients to identify them.

Speaking during a media briefing after an inspection of medical facilities done by the board in Kisumu yesterday, Yumbya said they have noticed that healthcare givers in both private and government institutions are not putting on their badges.

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"So many are people masquerading as healthcare workers with no form of identification. We want all health institution staff to have a badge that clearly identifies what that person is doing in that facility to make it easy to identify quacks," he added.

The board has so far published a list of all doctors on their website. They have also introduced an SMS number, 20547, that patients can use to access information on doctors attending to them at a fee.

Were Onyino, the technical leader of the team in charge of the inspection, said they have found healthcare workers working without appropriate certification and licences from the health regulatory bodies.

Dr Onyino warned the institutions, saying they would be held liable if they continued to employ unregistered staff.

He added most hospitals in Nyanza are employing nursing aids who are not qualified or recognised by the nursing council.