Duale vows to end corruption in nursing internship allocation
Cabinet Secretary for Health, Aden Duale, has promised to end corruption in the Ministry of Health to prevent irregularities in nursing internship allocations.
Duale spoke on Friday, August 1, 2025, during the official handover of posting letters to intern nurses who were wrongfully omitted from the interns’ posting list after corrective measures were taken to address anomalies identified in the initial posting of 2,098 interns across the country.
You might also like
“Corruption in our institution is what has led to the illegal and wrongful omission of rightful interns. I am going to decisively and intentionally root out corruption, starting from the Ministry of Health to the Nursing Council of Kenya,” he said.
“Reforms in the Nursing Council will be a top priority, starting with the suspension of the Nursing Council Chief Executive Officer. I will reform the Human Resource Department at the Ministry of Health and, lastly, digitise the internship process to ensure compliance in future.”
Going forward, the CS assured that only qualified students will be issued internship letters after graduation. He reiterated that having a completion letter does not amount to graduation.
The newly appointed Chairman of the Nursing Council of Kenya, Dr. Dabar Abdi Maalim, emphasised that they were determined to ensure that the directives of the Cabinet Secretary are adhered to.
“For the direction given by the Ministry of Health, we promise to align with the national standards, best practices, and existing government policies in the internship process,” he said.
“We will follow a transparent criterion in issuing the posting letter. Specifically, only candidates who have successfully graduated will be eligible for the internship offer letter.”
To ensure equity and fairness, the CS said that students who have stayed home longer after graduation will have priority when seeking an internship, as per the year they graduated, to ensure that everyone is incorporated fairly.
Move welcomed
Ian Nyantika, a nursing graduate from Moi University who had missed out on the initial list of interns, welcomed the proposals from the CS.
He thanked him for the swift action to ensure all those who had been left out of the internship posts were rightfully reinstated into the internship list.
“We feel relieved because justice has been served and all those who are eligible have been issued with their posting letters to various internship centres in the country,” he said.
“I wish to thank the CS for honouring his promise and ensuring all those who are eligible have been posted. I feel that the raft of measures proposed by the CS, especially digitising the whole process, will play a major role in combating such irregularities in the future.”
The CS subtly mentioned a new policy he plans to roll out where students will have to graduate, do the council exam, then go for an internship—unlike in previous years, where one was required to graduate, go for an internship, then do council exams for licensure.
He said that the new policy will make it easier for nurses to finish their internship while holding a license for posting into working areas.
