Health Chief Administrative Secretary (CAS) Mercy Mwangangi believes that biasness exists when it comes to employment.
Addressing the Nairobi Hospital CEO’s round table meeting with women leaders in Kenya’s health sector on March 30, 2022, the CAS talked about her working experience that captured everyone’s attention, a story that many people don’t know.
“Ambition is important. I am almost resolute in my belief that without ambition you will not be able to break down those window ceilings, walls that have been put up in your way. Do not be a coward,” she said.
Mercy graduated from medical school in 2009 and she was quickly posted as a medical intern in Machakos Level 5. She interned for 9 months.
Later, she was posted to Marimanti in Tharaka Nithi where she worked for three years, despite the unfavourable working conditions that she constantly complained about snakes that would hover around the offices and the hospital only had one ambulance.
“I was only 23-years-old when I was appointed District medical officer of health (DMOH),” she added.
Mwangangi believes that bias exists because after she graduated, she went back to the Ministry of Health and she was probably the only health economist in the ministry in 2016.
She felt the need to do some changes in NHIF and health financing but she was dismissed several times, however, she worked at the ministry for about 18 months and she was never paid.
“I used to hover around those corridors trying to jump into different surveys and trying to help different division heads to do their work and while in the process of trying to work on the Monitoring and Evaluation plans, I ended up being the youngest division head in the ministry at 27-years-old,” she added.
She served as health financing division head for some time before she found her way to the Afya House where she was quickly ousted for lacking a Godfather in that space.
“It is the same situation in Cabinet, you have to work harder, you have to have your facts right, you have to work 10 times more than your male counterparts,” CAS Mercy Mwangangi.
The meeting was organised under the theme: ‘Conquering the summit; Breaking biases through impact leadership and health equity’.