By VERAH OKEYOMore by this AuthorClinical officers and nurses who do not have a university degree will no longer perform surgeries such as Caesarean sections. According to the ministry’s Human Resource Information System, there were 11,290 practising clinical officers in 2016, making them the second-largest group of public health workers after nurses and midwives (45,018). The guidelines place medical officers at the top of the pile as the most trained and handling the most difficult cases. In levels 4-6 hospitals, surgeries are left to doctors while injections, inserting and removing contraception implants and dressing wounds can be handled by nurses and clinical officers. In his book East African Doctors: A History of the Modern Profession, British historian John Iliffe talks of doctors’ resistance to clinical officers having private practice.

Source: Daily Nation May 07, 2017 19:07 UTC