“When I received admission to Tenwek School of Nursing, my excitement overshadowed my family’s financial challenges, ” says Caren Chirchir, a young woman in Kenya.
Caren is the second of five children and she carries her family’s hope for a better future. Her older sister dropped out of school to get married.
When Caren’s father heard about her acceptance he called her aunties and uncles to ask for help paying her tuition fees. “Sad as it may sound, they advised my father to marry me off, ” she says.
But her father told them his daughter would go to school even if he’d have nothing left.
The high cost of medical training
With training costing about 70, 000 Kenya Shillings ($767) a year for most middle-level colleges like Tenwek, many students are unable to raise enough money and end up dropping out of their programs.
So Caren’s father organized a fundraising event. Neighbors contributed enough for her to report to school. But the money didn’t last long and the fees kept coming. She was soon sent back home.
“To reduce the frequency of disruptions, my father offered to supply the school with beans from our small farm, ” says Caren. “While this kept me in school for some time, it deprived my family of their livelihood. They lacked more and more. It pained me so much.”
Caren kept going back to school, hoping she was still considered enrolled in classes. In her second year, she received a scholarship that covered fees for one semester. But the remaining semester brought even more interruptions.
“I had no peace of mind and couldn’t concentrate on my studies. I worried about where I would get money to pay for my fees. Every time I would be sent home, I would lose a lot, ” she notes.
Kenya’s shortage of skilled health workers
Kenya has a serious shortage of health workers, with only 1 doctor, nurse, ormidwife for every 1, 000 people. This is less than half the minimum number recommended by the World Health Organization. Kenya’s growing population puts a further strain on the health workforce, which has a detrimental impact on the delivery of quality health services.
In order for the Ministry of Health and other stakeholders to address current staffing shortages and plan for the future, the country must significantly increase the number of graduates from its health professional schools. And unless there is a sufficient pool of qualified, well-trained health professionals, universal access to health care—a vision set forth in the Kenyan constitution—will not be realized.
Hope for medical students to stay in school
To help students like Caren and their families meet the financial burden associated with medical training and to help reduce provider shortages, IntraHealth International’s FUNZOKenya project partnered with the Higher Education Loans Board, the Kenya Healthcare Federation, and other stakeholders in the private and public sectors to establish a new loan program.
