The Paediatrician

The teenage girl stood outside the gates of the Duke of Gloucester School on the outskirts of Ngara in early 1967 contemplating walking through. She badly wanted to pursue sciences for her A-levels. She had qualified, but there was a catch – the Science classes were only offered at a boys’ school, actually an Indian boys’ school, so she was sure to stick out like a sore thumb. She did – for two years she was one of three young women at what became Jamhuri High School, and the only African one, but Florence Manguyu loved the learning, which balanced out the daily discomfort. Every day she would commute from her parents’ home in Eastleigh on the double decker buses that were the norm in Nairobi, mindful to sit only on the upper deck, which was reserved for Africans. Despite independence, segregation was still alive and well in the capital city.

On graduating from high school, Florence moved to Uganda to study medicine at the famous Makerere University. Like all medical graduates of the time residency took place in Kenyatta National Hospital, where she decided to focus on paediatrics as her speciality. By the early eighties there were a growing number of female doctors who felt that a medical women’s association would be an excellent vehicle to serve their needs and help them connect with other female medics internationally. The seemingly simple idea was met with opposition from the government who accused the women of trying to build a subversive anti-Moi women’s party. Eventually though, Florence and the other ten founder doctors and dentists of the Kenya Medical Women’s Association were allowed to register their organisation and the KMWA was born. The organisation has been instrumental in spearheading research and practice into women’s health through advancing reproductive health, women wellness clinics and cervical cancer treatment.

A practicing paediatrician, Florence was intimately aware of the challenges that children faced and became an ardent advocate for Kenya’s ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child in the late eighties. Working with teams to draft the bill was a tiring task but ultimately a rewarding one when Kenya became the 16th country in the world to ratify the convention in 1990. Her public health advocacy work led Florence to serve in various capacities in the women’s medical movement through Chairmanship of the KMWA and representing Africa at the International association. Always impeccably dressed,  in 1995 the Afro-chic Florence made history as the first African to be elected President of the Medical Women’s International Association since its founding in 1919.

We salute Dr Florence Manguyu for lifting the standard of children and women’s health in Kenya and the world!