Former governor Wycliffe Oparanya has criticised Health Cabinet Secretary Susan Nakhumicha for taking the doctors’ strike lightly. Wycliffe Oparanya said the issue of doctor’s strike should be taken seriously. During the homecoming ceremony of Lugari MP, Nabii Nabwera on Saturday, March 30, Oparanya accused Nakhumicha of spending most of her time in funerals and political functions politicking the ongoing doctors’s strike. According to the ODM deputy party leader, the CS should be dealing with it with the urgency and decorum he deserved. “I am surprised you have been here (Lugari) sitting the whole day waiting to speak in this fest and been wondering what time you have for the duty. I have been a governor and minister and know how the government runs. Doctors’ strikes can be addressed at funerals. You should be in the office sorting the complex health issues,” Oparanya said. Oparanya cautioned the Health CS against underestimating the capability of doctors to continue with the strike for days. He said Nachumicha should tread carefully as medics as learned people who deserve respect. “You keep belittling doctors thinking they are nurses. The thing with doctors is that they have side hustles to sustain them while the strike goes on. They may carry on for as many months as they can as our people suffer. You are dealing with bright people who scored straight As and A-(minuses), these are clever people even than yourself; I don’t know what you got,” he added. Meanwhile, Health CS said her presumed detractors sponsor her latest tribulations. The CS has been under pressure from a section of Kenyans who argue she has failed to properly run the critical docket, compounding things for he being the doctors’ strike. According to her, the happenings in her Ministry were the work of envious detractors who seemed unimpressed with her commitment to streamline the health sector, including those she claimed were aggrieved after they were denied the chance to fleece state agencies like KEMSA and the NHIF.
by Amos Khaemba
