He rocks up for the meeting quietly and on time. One dark car, one light bodyguard, a driver. He is dark himself. When he emerges from his car - tall, starched in an immaculate suit - I tell him I expected a more ostentatious entrance. “Oh, this is even a lot,” he says. “Normally, I would drive myself.”
It is, it turns out, a perfectly accurate introduction to Dr Ouma Oluga, Principal Secretary for Medical Services. No fanfare. No retinue. Just a man and his reputation, a physician and technocrat who somewhere along the way ended up deep inside the machinery of Kenya's Health ministry, the most senior doctor in it. The journey here has been anything but quiet.
He has been a student leader, a continental voice for medical students, a union firebrand, and even a guest of the State - albeit briefly - at Kamiti Maximum Prison, where he spent four days in 2017 championing doctors' rights. “Whatever takes you to jail,” he remarks, “must be important enough to also bring you out.”
At the height of Covid-19, the government came calling, needing someone professional enough to be credible and battle-hardened enough not to flinch. Dr Oluga moved into government service, heading health services at the Nairobi Metropolitan Services (NMS), where he helped build 32 hospitals. He holds a US medical licence that he has never used. “When I came in, there were mothers delivering at the gate,” he says of Pumwani Maternity Hospital. "For that full year, there was no single death. Nowadays, you don’t hear Pumwani in the news.”
But the golden thread running through all of it - the jail cell, the hospitals, the union battles - is conviction. It is, he will tell you, the quality he most admires in other people. And conviction, for Dr Oluga, has always demanded an outlet. "The tool I had then was to advocate," he says of his union years. “Right now, the tool I have is to do.”
I read somewhere that your dad passed on while cycling. How old were you and what do you recall of this tragic incident, and how did it shape future events for you?
Yeah, it was an evening in November. I was 11. My mom had left very early that morning after getting word that my dad had been found by the roadside. He was a teacher and had been riding his bicycle back from Siaya, where teachers collected their salaries those days.
They found him by the side of the road with the bicycle next to him. He wasn't dead when they found him, but from what we were told, he was in very bad condition. They took him to the district hospital, and my mom was called there. She didn't stay even five minutes before he passed on.
Ministry of Health Principal Secretary Dr Ouma Oluga poses for a photo after an interview on March 4, 2026.
Photo credit: Francis Nderitu | Nation Media Group
What really shaped me happened later that evening. My grandmother had sent me to Chianda market to the posho mill. There was a telephone booth next to one of the shops. As I passed, the phone started ringing. Being a curious child, I picked it up. And guess who was on the other side.
Who?
My mom. She said in Luo, ‘Mano nga' mo omako simu?’ [who’s that who’s answered the phone?] I recognised her voice but didn’t respond.
She continued — ‘If there is anyone around, rush to Ko’Ngudi (my grandfather's place), and tell him we have lost Japuonj Oluga’. I dropped the receiver and went home, but I couldn't break the news. I never told anyone. The news only broke at 10pm, with pandemonium and screams.
How did that event lead you to medicine?
I was very close to my dad. He gave me books, and I would read aloud for him. He used to say, ‘I am a teacher, so you need to do something better’. I also read newspapers for him every day.
There were a lot of stories about Amos Wako [former Attorney General] — I wanted to be a lawyer. But dad would always say, ‘No, I think you need to be a doctor’. He said it many times. So, that idea was planted in me early. When he passed on, all those things came back to me. And I thought — I'm going to be a doctor for you.
Is your mom still alive?
[Big smile] Yes. She is.
What did she say when you were appointed a PS?
When I was appointed PS, for her it was a moment of actualisation. Like many of her prayers had been answered. Careerwise, she was a nursery school teacher, but mostly spent her time raising my siblings and I.
With my dad passing on very young, she had to bring up eight of us - later, one of my sisters passed away, so now we are seven. It was very difficult. As you may know, teachers weren't earning much, and so she spent a lot of time working on people's farms just to make ends meet. It's quite a humbling background.
She has always been very grounded in the church - she is a lay leader in the Anglican Church - and has always prayed that we would get educated, that we would have a breakthrough.
Now with my appointment, she can tell people that God has lived up to His promise. From nothing. And indeed it is true - there is nothing in that village, Biko. It really is the bottom of the bottom, in the literal sense.
So, you must be the most notable figure to come out of there; how does that make you feel?
It gives me a strong sense of responsibility - to an extent, a sense of burden. Every time I go home, I look at the young people running around and ask myself, what do they know? How much do they know? I feel it is now my work to expose them to a different world, even before we talk about the things they deserve - good education, healthcare, roads, and electricity. It weighs on my heart, but it also drives my work.
Ministry of Health Principal Secretary Dr Ouma Oluga poses for a photo after an interview on March 4, 2026.
Photo credit: Francis Nderitu | Nation Media Group
As a unionist, there were many instances in which you would lock horns with the government. Now that you are in the government, do you know things that make you think, boy, I was so naive?
I've always stayed in one lane. I was exposed to policy early, even as a medical student, and many of the things we were saying then we are now actualising. At NMS, we dealt with issues health workers had raised for years - medical cover, promotions, and employment.
But let me tell you what I truly believe: a healthcare system's pivot is the health worker - the nurse, the doctor - the person who brings everything to life. You can build hospitals, install CT scans, stock medicines, but the person who turns all that into a service is the health worker. That moment when a patient sits in front of a provider - that experience is everything.
What I believed then is what I still believe now. The only difference is that before, my tool was advocacy.
Now that you have been on both sides, what is the biggest misunderstanding doctors have of the government and vice versa?
The biggest misunderstanding doctors have about the government is that resources are infinite. The second is about time and process. The government works through a sequence: you do A, which leads to B, then B to C. Doctors often don’t appreciate that.
On the other side, there is a belief held by some in the government that doctors control the system and are the reason it doesn't work, which isn't true. Many ministers in the Ministry of Health have never been doctors.
Doctors are employees of the system and must be managed like any other. But in many places they are left to their own devices, then blamed when things go wrong - things the system itself should own. Part of why I'm grateful for this appointment is that it allows me to bridge those two worlds.
Public service is known to be very consuming. What have you had to give up to serve?
Yes, it is, a lot. My friends don't like me as much anymore - I'm rarely available. The sacrifice to family is real. My son has a habit of flipping my own question back at me: If I ask him, ‘what did you do today?’ he responds, ‘ what did you do today that you couldn't come pick us?’ Hard to answer.
But you also open yourself up to scrutiny. You become public property. You carry blame for things not entirely within your control, and because it's the government, you are the face of it. You absorb it and keep asking what could have been done better.
How has the government surprised you?
Honestly, the government hasn’t surprised me. If anything, what has struck me is how hard people here actually work - the public perception is often the opposite, but people really do push themselves.
What has impressed me beyond that is how the development agenda is being positioned, particularly around the President. If you take time to listen carefully to what he says, you begin to see that a clear vision has been established. That clarity has impressed me. Of course, there can be challenges in implementation - people may wonder whether what was promised is really being delivered. But that doesn't remove from the clarity of vision.
My role as PS is to translate that clarity into clarity of implementation, through efficiency and discipline. That's how I approach my work every day. It didn't surprise me, though, because even at NMS, we did a great deal in a very short time.
What we used to say then was efficiency meeting effectiveness. I've carried that mindset here, and I am always asking how what we are doing translates to the citizens.
What trait do you admire most in other people?
Conviction. When someone truly believes in something and sticks to it, I find that admirable - it's a quality of both leadership and character that you cannot fake. It's best when that conviction is aligned with the public interest, with the ability to solve a big challenge. But conviction itself I deeply respect.
People can talk all they want, but very quickly you can tell whether someone truly believes what they are saying or is simply offering lip service. When someone is genuinely convicted, you feel it immediately.
Who do you go to when you need raw advice?
A number of people, depending on what I need. My wife advises me - even when I don't want it - and sometimes I take it. There are accomplished professionals like Prof Elijah Ogola, and then there's what I call the squad - a close group of friends I've had forever. My best friend, Kevin, I've known him for 28 years. He's a physician like me, and with people like that, you get the truth exactly as it is. They don't care who you are — they'll just tell you.
I have great respect for Prof Ogola - he was very kind and committed to my sick mother until she passed on.
A great man and cardiologist. He's been my mentor and support supervisor for quite some time. Then there are elders back in the village.
What's the last thing that made you really angry?
That's a hard one. I am extremely slow to anger. I even went to jail once, in 2017, four days at Kamiti Maximum Prison for championing doctors' rights. Not an experience you'd wish on anyone. Maybe it should have made me angry, but it didn't consume me that way.
Ministry of Health Principal Secretary Dr Ouma Oluga poses for a photo after an interview on March 4, 2026.
Photo credit: Francis Nderitu | Nation Media Group
What I said then was that whatever takes you to jail must be important enough to also bring you out. And that was the case. I am slow to anger, but I never forget.
Freedom is important - no one should ever take your freedom. But that experience reaffirmed something I believe deeply: when you are truly convicted about something, stand for it.
You are 41 now. What worries you?
Honestly, I have a few worries. At a personal level, I'm just starting my career, and I ask myself how much more useful I can still be. But what worries me most is the future of Kenya.
There is clarity coming from the President, but whether citizens understand it and feel able to participate in building that future concerns me deeply.
I qualified to practice medicine in the US. But the question I've always carried is: who made it better there? If we decide that we will make it better here, we will begin to think very differently about our future.
What's the last song you listened to?
Sadaka Yangu by Brenda Sarah, which is about offering and thanksgiving. I listen to quite a bit of gospel, but sometimes also to rhumba. And of course, good African music. I play Coster Ojwang's music a lot, he is a culturalist, I love his song Hera. [Hums it].
