KENYA has a deficit of 50,000 health workers, Kenya Medical Training College Board chairman Philip Kaloki has said.

He said 50 per cent of the 6,500 health workers who graduate at Kenya Medical Training College each year, leave for greener pastures outside the country.

Kaloki was speaking at the Moi Hospital in Voi during a meeting with Taita Taveta Governor John Mruttu and Voi MP Jones Mlolwa yesterday.

He said a medical KMTC will open a college at the hospital to address the staffing shortage.

Kaloki said that the new institution will havev two dormitories for boys and girls, four classrooms, a library, a laboratory and an administration block.

"We need about 50,000 health workers to sufficiently deal with the current shortage in the cuntry," he said.