Participation of Nurses in National Politics and Health Policy Development at Meru Level 5 General Hospital

Abstract

The nurses in Kenya have the numerical power because they form the highest population of the health care system in Kenya. Despite this, they have been unable to have a strong voice to champion their rights and influence health policy formulation at policy tables. In the hospital management and at national level, the nurses hold mostly subordinate roles compared to medical counterparts. No record exists for nurses who have made it to the Kenyan National Parliament and Senate. Literature on the participation of Nurses in national politics and health policy in Kenya is scanty. This makes the situation wanting because without nurses’ participation at legislative arena the nursing profession will retrogress. The purpose of the study therefore aims at determining the participation of nurses in national politics and health care policy development. The specific focus was to find out the knowledge, perception and participation in health policy development and national politics and health policy development. The study adopted a descriptive cross- sectional study design. Self-administered questionnaires were used to collect data. The sample size was 49 registered nurses. Simple random sampling was used to select the respondents. Knowledge and perception were assessed using a set of questions that were scored on a Likert scale. Data was analyzed using Microsoft Excel 2007. The findings revealed that nurses at Meru Level 5 General Hospital had limited participation in national politics and healthcare policy development, with political participation majorly limited to voting in the general elections and health policy implementation respectively. Very few nurses were engaged in agenda setting, policy formulation and policy evaluation stages. 92% reported that politics was good for the profession, with 65% expressing that political discussions have a direct impact on their salaries and working conditions. All participants (100%) reported that nurses have a responsibility to engage in health policy development because they are knowledgeable and direct healthcare providers. Keywords: Advocacy, Health care policy, Health policy development process, Participation, Politics, Policy.