Kenya is positioning itself as a regional healthcare destination, with Aga Khan University Hospital, Nairobi aiming to attract more African patients and reduce billions lost to overseas treatment.
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Speaking at the 14th annual BusinessDay CEO Forum on Thursday, Khurram Jamal, chief operating officer of Aga Khan University Hospital, Nairobi, said the continent’s healthcare crisis is driven less by a shortage of hospitals than by years of underinvestment in the people who deliver care.
“The biggest challenge is not buildings. It is people,” Jamal said. “A hospital cannot function without trained specialists. You can build a modern hospital in months, but it takes more than a decade to train a medical specialist. If we fail to invest in people today, the next generation will inherit empty hospitals.”
He said governments across Africa have focused on constructing hospitals while paying too little attention to training, retaining and adequately compensating doctors, nurses and specialists.
