Lynette Kosgei is a frontline healthcare worker in the fight against Kenya’s HIV epidemic. Not only is Kosgei a nurse, but she is a leader in the community and heads up a rural HIV care and treatment facility. At this centre, she has greatly improved access to the treatment for thousands of people living with HIV. Trained as a community nurse, Kosgei was the single healthcare worker staffing the Asayi Health Dispensary for five years.
In 2014, Kosgei received additional training, which allowed her to provide basic care for HIV, including antiretroviral therapy (ART) for her patients. This additional certification enabled her to diagnose patients with HIV and to prescribe and manage their medications. She was able to add support staff to the facility, greatly expanding the care provided and improving the health and wellbeing of its over 5,000 patients.
In addition to leading the expansion of the facility’s care and treatment programs, Kosegei also became a master trainer which enabled her to use her enhanced HIV clinical skills to provide supportive supervision and assistance to other nurses, ensuring comprehensive HIV care and treatment at her facility and throughout the country. Since completing her training, Kosegei has served her patients admirably while also actively sharing her expertise as a nurse-in-charge with other health practitioners on a global stage. She has presented best practices and recommendations at numerous African and international conferences including the World Aids Conference (Durban, 2016) and regularly provides input to ICAP programming. Kosegai is proof-positive that when empowered with critical training and professional development opportunities, nurses will drive forward positive change for the betterment of communities on an international level. The Asayi health facility, Kenya, and the world are better places because of her extraordinary commitment to care.