Hospitals Face Shortage of Trained Specialists

Health experts across Kenya are raising the alarm over a severe shortage of specialist doctors, which is undermining the quality of care in many public hospitals. According to a report by Business Daily, most hospitals lack key specialists—such as oncologists, psychiatrists, endocrinologists, and pathologists—forcing patients with complex conditions to travel to major referral centres for treatment.
Doctors’ unions are also sounding the alarm. The Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists & Dentists Union (KMPDU) says there is a recruitment crisis: despite producing hundreds of new doctors annually, many remain unemployed or underemployed, while public hospitals continue to struggle to fill specialist roles. The shortage is particularly acute in county referral hospitals, with one kidney specialist recently noting that some level‑4 and level‑5 hospitals operate without any consultants at all.
The lack of trained specialists also affects critical services. According to a healthcare market‑study report, Kenya has very few medical specialists overall, which gives the existing few high bargaining power and drives up costs, especially in private hospitals. In emergency medicine, this deficit is even more pronounced: an ACEP (American College of Emergency Physicians) country report notes that while some physicians are trained abroad, there are not enough emergency medicine specialists to lead public sector departments.
Patients are feeling the strain. During the latest doctors’ strike, some county hospitals publicly acknowledged that they had to refer patients who needed specialized care to private facilities, because no specialist was available in-house. Health policymakers warn that this specialist gap threatens progress on Universal Health Coverage (UHC), noting that critical chronic and emergency care simply cannot scale without more trained specialists.