Kenya Paediatric Fellowship Program (KPFP)

Kenya Paediatric Fellowship Program (KPFP) was a four-year program running from June 2019 to June 2023, funded by the ELMA Foundation. KPFP was established in July 2019 to address the shortage of childcare specialists by offering 24 scholarships to paediatricians to specialize in critical Paediatric subspecialty areas, namely: Neonatology, Hemato-Oncology, Neurology, Infectious diseases, Endocrinology, and Emergency and Critical Care. In the nursing cadre, 30 midwives and 94 Paediatric nurses and Paediatric critical care nurses benefited from the scholarship. The partner training institutions for this fellowship program were University of Nairobi, Moi University, Aga Khan University and Gertrude’s Children’s Hospital School of Nursing.

The Kenya Paediatric Fellowship Program, which began in June 2019 to June 2023, aimed to significantly enhance pediatric and maternal healthcare in Kenya through a multi-faceted approach. The program’s overarching purpose was to address systemic healthcare access and quality disparities by strategically selecting and deploying child health specialists to underserved regions, mitigating inequitable workforce distribution.

The program’s core objectives included sponsoring the training of 148 specialists in pediatrics and maternal newborn health, equipping them with advanced skills and knowledge to elevate healthcare standards. Furthermore, the program aimed to strengthen training institutions by fostering the development of other specialized fellowship programs in Neonatology, Paediatric Hematology-Oncology, neurology, and endocrinology. This would ensure a sustainable supply of highly trained professionals capable of delivering specialized care, making Kenya a training hub for Paediatric subspecialists for the region.

Integral to the program was the commitment to enhancing training quality and mentorship for graduates, enabling them to make a lasting impact post-deployment. By establishing robust mentoring mechanisms, the program aimed to maximize the effectiveness and retention of specialist skills, ultimately leading to improved health outcomes for children and mothers across the country.

The goal of KPFP was to expand the capacity of training institutions in Kenya to select, train and deploy quality paediatric sub-specialists, midwives and paediatric nurses, and to address the shortage and inequitable distribution of specialized child health workforce in the public sector. The specific objectives of the program were to:

1. Improve strategic selection and deployment of specialized child health workforce in order to address inequitable distribution;
2. Train specialists in pediatrics and maternal-newborn health;
3. Support Universities to build faculty capacity and establish infrastructure for new pediatric sub-specialty fellowship programs; and
4. Improve the quality of training and mentorship of graduates to increase post-deployment impact on paediatric care.