A dispute has emerged between the Council of Governors (CoG) and the Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentists Council (KMPDC) over a directive requiring the compulsory registration of all ambulances and emergency medical personnel by Monday, September 15.
According to the notice, KMPDC wants all ambulances, paramedics, emergency medical technicians, ambulance operators, and other pre-hospital service providers to register with the council. It warned that failure to comply would result in sanctions, including prohibition from operating.
The directive has drawn sharp criticism from CoG Chairperson Ahmed Abdullahi, who accused the Ministry of Health and its agencies of ignoring prior agreements with counties on the management of emergency and ambulance services.
Governors argue that the order disregards devolution and duplicates responsibilities already allocated to county governments under the 2010 Constitution.
In a letter to governors dated September 9, Abdullahi directed county governments to dismiss the public notice.
“The KMPDC Act does not confer any functions to any level of government. Accordingly, the threatened consequences of non-compliance with the notice are of no effect to counties performing their constitutional mandates,” he stated.
He added that under Article 186 and Part 2 of the Fourth Schedule, ambulance services are clearly assigned to counties. “Counties have invested heavily in ambulance services over the past 12 years and established functional referral systems,” Abdullahi said.
County officials also raised concern about what they termed as “conflicts of mandate” between national agencies and county governments, warning that parallel systems would cause operational and financial inefficiencies.
Abdullahi further revealed that county health executives had rejected KMPDC’s draft standards on emergency medical care during a meeting in Mombasa on September 5. They insisted that any new framework must align with county-managed ambulance dispatch systems.
“The Ministry of Health and its semi-autonomous institutions have reneged on resolutions made towards cooperation and consultation. We therefore advise county governments to disregard the public notice and treat it with the contempt it deserves,” Abdullahi stated.
