- Government negotiating for the medics to work in Europe, Middle East
- The situation is unfortunate, says Cabinet Secretary
- The UK agreed to hire 20,000 Kenyan nurses on three-year contract basis
Only 10 out of 300 health workers who sat for an English language test to qualify for jobs in the United Kingdom (UK), have passed, said Kenya’s Health Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe.
Kenyan nurses and other health workers who are jobless recently got a chance to work in the UK as part of a new scheme requested by the Kenyan government this year.
“We had negotiated for clinical workers for job exports but this turn of events is unfortunate,” said CS Kagwe during the Kenya Clinical Officers Association scientific conference in the coastal city of Mombasa.
In July this year, the UK agreed to hire 20,000 Kenyan nurses. According to the agreement between the two countries, the nurses would be employed on a three-year contract, with a salary of Kenyan shillings 450,000 a month.
The government, CS said, will continue to negotiate for Kenyan health workers to work in Europe and the Middle East. The UK has, in the past, allowed skilled Kenyans without degrees to apply for work permits in Britain under post-Brexit immigration rules.
In the latest development, health workers were meant to serve in the UK’s National Health Service before returning to work in Kenya. But CS Kagwe said on Wednesday this week in Nairobi that only a minority of those who applied qualified for the jobs.
He advised health workers to work hard to pass the employment standards set for jobs abroad.
