Healthcare providers want permanent employment

Clinical officers

Striking clinical officers have asked their colleagues to stop working at Mathari Hospital and the National Spinal Injury Hospital in Nairobi, where they've been offering services on compassionate grounds.

“We want the permanent and pensionable employment of the clinical officers, risk allowances of Sh15,000 and Sh105,000 monthly stipend for degree clinical officer interns," said Austin Oduor, KUCO Deputy Secretary General.

Acting Director General for Health, Patrick Amoth, says the government hired clinical officers as a short-term solution for the shortage of doctors. "Now we have 3,000 unemployed doctors. Do we want to continue to produce clinical officers? Or do we retool them to a different path?” he said.

Nurses

Nurses are demanding more than Sh3 billion in a lawsuit against the Ministry of Health and the Public Service Commission. The nurses union, KNUN, claimed that in 2020 at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Ministry of Health through the PSC hired 2,500 nurses on three-year contracts that will lapse next month.

KNUN’s industrial relations officer, Kibet Kirui said a multi-agency task force indicated that it was no longer tenable to have all health workers hired during the pandemic retained under contracts. Additionally, the task force recommended the National Treasury allocate Sh3.5 billion to fund the nurses' transition into permanent and pensionable contracts.

When a healthcare crisis strikes, we want any willing healthcare provider to keep risking their life so that we who are safe at home and away from disease ride the wave. This was Kenya during the pandemic, how can we fail to look after our frontline workers when the ultimate crisis has subsided?

Kenya is one of five countries participating in the Health Emergency Preparedness, Response and Resilience Programme, a $15 million project funded by the World Bank unveiled this week. How can we prioritise fair wages for all healthcare workers as a primary way of emergency preparedness? Over to you Ministry of Health and all medical unions.

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