In recent years we’ve seen headlines of hospitals, clinics, and other health facilities being closed down due to compliance issues. The bulk of these issues tend to be human-resource-related where we see quacks misrepresenting themselves as qualified medics.
This is cause for concern as such misrepresentation puts
patients at risk of malpractices which often lead to poor health outcomes and
worse, may even result in fatalities.
For this reason, it’s essential that any kind of medical
practice is heavily regulated. In Kenya, the body tasked with this vital role is
the Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentists Council (KMPDC).
Some of the council’s core regulatory functions include:
- It
registers and licenses all medical and dental practitioners.
- It
registers and licenses all health institutions including:
- Public
Hospitals
- Private
Hospitals
- Faith-based
facilities (i.e. mission hospitals)
- Medical
Centres, Dental Centres & Clinics
- Nursing
and Maternity Homes
- Stand-alone
funeral homes
- It is
tasked with the approval all medical and dental training institutions.
In order to fulfill part of this mandate, the council keeps a
register of all compliant facilities and practitioners to ensure Kenyans get
quality healthcare.
How to Check KMPDC Registers
You can verify that either is duly registered and licensed
to operate by the council by checking against the respective registers provided
on their site. To do this:
- Visit
the KMPDC site
and select Registers from the menu.
- On
this page, you’ll be provided with two registers: Registered
Practitioners Registers and Registered Health Facilities
Registers. The former is for individual practitioners while the latter
is for medical institutions.
- Expand
the corresponding register and select the type of practitioner or facility
you want to check-in.
- At the
top of each register, there’s a search box where you can enter a facility’s
or practitioner’s name to quickly filter it from the list.
- Once
you find your match check the status column and verify it's listed as Active.
To view more details about a facility or practitioner (qualifications,
speciality, sub-speciality, etc.) just click the View button.
If you don’t find a facility or a practitioner in the register, then it’s probable that they’re either not duly registered or compliant. You can report this to KMPDC to verify this is indeed the case after which they can take the necessary actions.
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