On the eve of Labor Day, when most Kenyans were wind­ing down in antic­i­pa­tion of rest and cel­e­bra­tion, I under­went a del­i­cate and intri­cate eye pro­ce­dure. As I lay on the theater’s oper­at­ing table, anx­i­ety briefly held me cap­tive. Yet, reas­sur­ance soon replaced my appre­hen­sion as the gen­tle voice of Dr. Karego, a ded­i­cat­ed and com­pas­sion­ate oph­thal­mol­o­gist, calmed my nerves. Dur­ing our pre-oper­a­tive con­ver­sa­tion, she shared insights that shocked and inspired me to research further.

Dr. Karego men­tioned, almost casu­al­ly, that Kenya has few­er than 120 oph­thal­mol­o­gists. Indeed, deep­er research lat­er revealed an even graver pic­ture: Kenya has approx­i­mate­ly 115 oph­thal­mol­o­gists serv­ing a rapid­ly expand­ing pop­u­la­tion esti­mat­ed at 57.3 mil­lion in 2025 by the World Pop­u­la­tion Review. This places the nation­al ratio at rough­ly one oph­thal­mol­o­gist per 420,000 peo­ple, stark­ly below the World Health Orga­ni­za­tion’s rec­om­mend­ed ratio of one oph­thal­mol­o­gist per 250,000 indi­vid­u­als. The sit­u­a­tion wors­ens in rur­al areas, with one oph­thal­mol­o­gist often serv­ing up to three mil­lion peo­ple (Uni­ver­si­ty of Nairo­bi Oph­thal­mol­o­gy Depart­ment, 2025). Inter­est­ing­ly, as of the most recent data, Thai­land, with a report­ed pop­u­la­tion of about 70 mil­lion peo­ple, has approx­i­mate­ly 1.52 oph­thal­mol­o­gists per 100,000 people.

Even more con­cern­ing in Kenya is that out of these 115 oph­thal­mol­o­gists, few­er than 12, like Dr. Karego, have spe­cial­ized fur­ther in crit­i­cal areas such as reti­na and pupil surgery. With dia­betes becom­ing increas­ing­ly preva­lent, affect­ing approx­i­mate­ly 2,578,500 adults or 4.5% of Kenya’s pop­u­la­tion accord­ing to labtestzote.com (2024), the demand for spe­cial­ists to man­age dia­betes-relat­ed com­pli­ca­tions, such as dia­bet­ic retinopa­thy, has surged dra­mat­i­cal­ly. Approx­i­mate­ly 11% of dia­bet­ic patients in Kenya devel­op dia­bet­ic retinopa­thy, a con­di­tion that, if untreat­ed, can lead to irre­versible vision loss, accord­ing to PubMed Cen­tral (2023).

With­out a doubt, this scarci­ty of spe­cial­ized care has a trou­bling rip­ple effect: it inevitably invites an increase in unqual­i­fied or “quack” doc­tors. Patients des­per­ate for treat­ment often fall vic­tim to these fraud­u­lent prac­tices, exac­er­bat­ing their con­di­tions and fre­quent­ly result­ing in per­ma­nent vision loss. The pro­lif­er­a­tion of quacks under­scores the urgency for strin­gent pol­i­cy mea­sures and the train­ing of more gen­uine specialists.

Reflect­ing on these trou­bling real­i­ties, I am remind­ed of the late Dr. Amos Kiba­ta, a ded­i­cat­ed oph­thal­mol­o­gist and a per­son­al friend whose pas­sion for reti­na care and unwa­ver­ing com­mit­ment deeply touched count­less lives. His recent pass­ing has inten­si­fied the gap in Kenya’s oph­thal­mol­o­gy sec­tor, vivid­ly remind­ing us of the indis­pens­able role such devot­ed pro­fes­sion­als play in pre­serv­ing our pre­cious eyesight.

Accord­ing­ly, Kenya must urgent­ly embrace action­able pol­i­cy solu­tions to address this grow­ing cri­sis. First­ly, the gov­ern­ment should increase invest­ment in med­ical edu­ca­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly by offer­ing schol­ar­ships and incen­tives explic­it­ly aimed at oph­thal­mol­o­gy and its cru­cial sub­spe­cial­ties. Train­ing spe­cial­ists like vit­re­o­reti­nal sur­geons is cost­ly and demands pro­longed com­mit­ment, which deters many capa­ble med­ical prac­ti­tion­ers. Gov­ern­ment-backed incen­tives can sig­nif­i­cant­ly ease these burdens.

Sec­ond­ly, estab­lish­ing robust pub­lic-pri­vate part­ner­ships can sub­stan­tial­ly low­er the finan­cial bar­ri­ers of set­ting up spe­cial­ized eye care cen­ters. Such col­lab­o­ra­tions would allow for the acqui­si­tion of state-of-the-art equip­ment, thus enabling broad­er and more equi­table access to crit­i­cal eye care services.

The Min­istry of Health must also imple­ment strin­gent reg­u­la­tions to com­bat med­ical quack­ery. Strength­en­ing over­sight and reg­u­la­to­ry mech­a­nisms is vital to safe­guard the pub­lic from dan­ger­ous, unqual­i­fied practitioners.

Final­ly, we must fos­ter a cul­ture of appre­ci­a­tion and proac­tive respon­si­bil­i­ty towards all our health­care pro­fes­sion­als. We must reg­u­lar­ly cel­e­brate doc­tors who tire­less­ly ded­i­cate their lives to sav­ing our sight and well-being, often work­ing long hours under chal­leng­ing con­di­tions. By pri­or­i­tiz­ing invest­ments in health­care infra­struc­ture and spe­cial­ized train­ing, we col­lec­tive­ly affirm our com­mit­ment to pub­lic health.

My per­son­al expe­ri­ence and con­ver­sa­tions with ded­i­cat­ed doc­tors like Dr. Karego have under­scored a pro­found truth: eye­sight is an invalu­able asset, defin­ing the qual­i­ty of life. Let us invest wise­ly and proac­tive­ly in our vision. In hon­or­ing and sup­port­ing Kenya’s few but mighty eye spe­cial­ists, we pave the way towards a health­i­er, brighter future for all.
Think green, act green!