Current:Home > MarketsKenya ends arrangement to swap doctors with Cuba. The deal was unpopular with Kenyan doctors-LoTradeCoin
Kenya ends arrangement to swap doctors with Cuba. The deal was unpopular with Kenyan doctors
View Date:2024-12-23 23:38:04
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Kenya’s government announced Wednesday it would not be renewing a 6-year-old deal that saw Cuban doctors employed in Kenya while those from the East African country travelled to Cuba for specialized training.
The program was unpopular with Kenya’s main doctors union, partly because the Cuban doctors received more than double the average salary of their Kenyan counterparts. Critics argued that money would be better spent on Kenya’s medical infrastructure and on its own doctors.
Health Minister Nakumicha Wafula announced the end of the Cuba deal at a meeting with health industry workers in the capital, Nairobi, and was met with applause and shouts of “yes, yes!” Wafula said the ministry would ensure that the country’s health workers are “well taken care of.”
Under the deal signed in 2017, 50 Kenyans were sent to Cuba to undergo specialized training, while 100 Cubans were dispatched to county level hospitals in Kenya to help improve services.
The move was heavily criticized at the time by legislators and the Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union, which said it was a waste of resources when the country was struggling with thousands of unemployed doctors and specialists.
The union said the money used to pay the Cuban doctors’ high salaries could have been used to hire Kenyan doctors or to buy medical equipment for local hospitals which often lack basic facilities and medicines.
Kenya’s Salaries and Renumeration Commission has said that each Cuban doctor was paid a monthly salary of about $5,300, while local doctors in the same category received between $1600 and $2300. The Cuban doctors also had better travel and housing allowances
Doctors and nurses Kenya have often gone on strike demanding better pay and working conditions.
veryGood! (799)
Related
- Taylor Swift drops Christmas merchandise collection, including for 'Tortured Poets' era
- DEI attacks pose threats to medical training, care
- House investigators scrutinize Rep. Matt Gaetz's defunct federal criminal sex trafficking probe
- Florida man clocked driving 199 mph in dad's Camaro, cops say
- Auburn surges, while Kansas remains No. 1 in the USA TODAY Sports men's basketball poll
- Mel B’s Major Update on Another Spice Girls Reunion Will Make You Stop Right Now
- Ben Affleck and why we like iced coffee year-round
- Nepal asks Russia to send back Nepalis recruited to fight in Ukraine and the bodies of those killed
- Larry Hobbs, who guided AP’s coverage of Florida news for decades, has died at 83
- Israel vows to fight Hamas all the way to Gaza’s southern border. That’s fueling tension with Egypt
Ranking
- The Office's Kate Flannery Defends John Krasinski's Sexiest Man Alive Win
- Full Virginia General Assembly signs off on SCC nominees, elects judges
- Colombia declares a disaster because of wildfires and asks for international help
- 14 states are cutting individual income taxes in 2024. Here are where taxpayers are getting a break.
- Congress is revisiting UFOs: Here's what's happened since last hearing on extraterrestrials
- Court storm coming? LSU preparing for all scenarios as Tigers host No. 1 South Carolina
- Step Inside Pregnant Jessie James Decker’s Nature-Themed Nursery for Baby No. 4
- 'Feud: Capote vs. The Swans': Premiere date, cast, trailer, what to know about new season
Recommendation
-
Solawave Black Friday Sale: Don't Miss Buy 1, Get 1 Free on Age-Defying Red Light Devices
-
Wisconsin mom gives birth to baby boy in snowy McDonald’s parking lot. See his sweet nickname.
-
'Griselda' cast, release date, where to watch Sofía Vergara star as Griselda Blanco in new series
-
The FAA lays out a path for Boeing 737 Max 9 to fly again, but new concerns surface
-
Pedro Pascal's Sister Lux Pascal Debuts Daring Slit on Red Carpet at Gladiator II Premiere
-
China expands access to loans for property developers, acting to end its prolonged debt crisis
-
Residents of northern Australia batten down homes, businesses ahead of Tropical Cyclone Kirrily
-
Twin brothers named valedictorian and salutatorian at Long Island high school