Wellness & Fitness

Health sector workers deserve better housing

DOCS

Doctors during a past Kenya Medical Association conference. PHOTO | LABAN WALLOGA | NMG

Over the weekend, medical laboratory services chain group, Pathology Lancet held a ground-breaking ceremony for a real estate development project in Katani, off Mombasa Road. The project to be developed through the Lancet Housing Cooperative Scheme, follows the responsible path of other serious health organisations in supporting home ownership for their staff.

One of the biggest disappointment for some employees may be grappling with house rent after 30 years of employment upon retirement. This is, however, a rather common occurrence in Kenya, mainly due to poor individual financial planning and lack of organisational or government support in facilitating employees’ home ownership.

Fortunately, the Big Four agenda identifies housing and home ownership as a key goals for the current administration’s delivery and seeks to rectify this. This also creates room for discussion among health sector employers and employees on what they are doing for their staff housing needs.

As employers, the motivation towards supporting home ownership is in dilemma. To do or not to do?

There are several schools of thought around the idea, some indicate that housing is a personal employee issue that an employer shouldn’t bother with, but others argue it may contribute towards staff retention and top talent acquisition.

Taking a statistical look at some of the earlier housing projects particularly done by health workers locally, reveals a grim picture for employees towards home ownership.

More housing estates were done in the 1990-2000 era than currently. Perhaps we can now jump-start the idea of family homes, but this requires both employees and employers welfare groups to see the vision behind this.

Interestingly, despite the health sector, particularly the higher cadres enjoying a slightly higher disposable income compared to other formal employments, home ownership especially among doctors ranks among the lower quintiles of employee home ownership.

On average teachers, banking and financial professions particularly in the management groups with equivalent earnings to doctors are said to be more likely to be living in their own homes compared to medics. The disparity triggered a few discussions among medics in terms of renting a house or buying one.

One of the potential reason for this damning statistic is the nature of our jobs. Formerly under the National Health system, high mobility of our jobs was the norm. One would be posted for internship in one area then posted elsewhere and after postgraduate training be deployed elsewhere.

As such making long-term financial commitment for a project like a house wasn’t rational. The devolved health system has changed that, and one can comfortably bet on working in one area for a long time. Similarly, many doctors are moving to rural areas, but developing individual housing without the scale that a housing estate development offers makes such less stand-alone investments less attractive.