Annual report of the Medical Officer of Health / Nairobi Municipality.

  • Nairobi (Kenya). Public Health Department.
Date:
[1959]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Annual report of the Medical Officer of Health / Nairobi Municipality. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    9/150 (page 7)
    political entanglements and impacts as far as possible, feeling that it is the duty of a professional body to deal with its own sphere only. The recent trend of events in Kenya, however, makes this attitude difficult if not impossible to maintain, since the probable impacts of the threatened upheaval in this country will be enormous. It is difficult, and possibly unwise, to try too closely to predict the future, but certain trends seem to be bound to develop, and they should as far as possible be recognised and met as effectively as circumstances may allow. In the first place, the recruitment of European highly skilled and qualified staff is likely to become increasingly difficult, and no immigrant races can now look forward to making a career in this country. Secondly, there will be pressure for the filling of vacancies from the local indigenous population, and it can be anticipated that these will for many years be available only with relatively low qualifications and experience. Thirdly, it seems likely that the inculcation of ideas of health, sanitation and hygienic responsibility into the inhabitants of the city will become increas¬ ingly difficult, partly because of the lack of staff to do so, and secondly because of possible increased difficulty in by-law enforcement and discipline. All this adds up to one thing, and that is the deterioration of the standards that the existing staff have spent many laborious years in building up. It has been a commonplace with us that sanitary administration in this city was very different from a comparable city in the United Kingdom. In the latter, genera¬ tions of painstaking indoctrination into health matters and the presence of responsible and civilised elements in the population in local authorities gradually increasing in number means that the population could be regarded as 95% co-operative and sanitarily conscious. Here, almost the precise reverse could be said to exist, except that over the past fourteen years, in effect since World War II, there has been a gradual improvement. This improvement has been achieved by steady propaganda, by firm adherence to standards and by prosecu¬ tion and court work. It seems very unlikely that a continuing campaign of this kind will remain unaffected by political change. This is admittedly a somewhat unhappy outlook, and one could suggest certain measures which might mitigate a deterioration. These would be as follows: 1. The attracting into the organisation of well qualified and energetic contract staff from outside the country during the interim period. 2. The speeding up to a marked degree of the education of African sanitary workers and insisting that a proper standard is maintained for qualification.