Nurses’ strike
Nurses in Machakos County have threatened to down their tools on July 24 over delayed promotions.
Led by the Kenya National Union of Nurses (KNUN) Machakos Branch Secretary Michael Saka, the Health Workers on Thursday issued a 21- day notice to the County Government to meet their grievances failure to which they would go on strike.
Saka said over 1,015 nurses due for promotion have stagnated in one job group for the last seven years and called on the County Government to expeditiously promote the health workers to avert a looming crisis.
“The Governor promised to promote nurses by January this year. Some of us were promoted but majority have not. We appreciate the efforts by the governor, but we want all of us promoted and our arrears paid because they are long overdue,” said Saka.
Addressing the press on Thursday in Machakos, the KNUN Branch Secretary also called on the County Government to provide essential medical supplies in all health facilities to ease service delivery. He said lack of the supplies has almost grounded health care services in many facilities across the County.
“Currently the Machakos Level Five Hospital does not have supplies including food. Patients are relying on food brought to them by relatives which is very unfortunate,” said Saka. The unionist also urged the County Government to employ more nurses to fill the gap of health workers who have exited for greener pastures abroad.
He disclosed that close to 250 nurses have left the service for jobs abroad in the last three years leading to an acute shortage of staff. “Since they left, none has been replaced leading to fatigue. In the last two years close to 300 nurses have not gone on leave which is quite unfair,” said Saka.
The Branch Secretary appealed to the devolved unit to prioritise human resources in the sector even as it seeks to improve infrastructure including expansion and upgrading of Health facilities.
“Health workers are the key pillars to health care in this country. The County Government has set aside allocations for expanding health facilities and upgrading dispensaries to level four Hospitals yet nurses have been employed. We want the health sector to fully function and there is need to look at the workforce,” noted the unionist.
He asked the County Government to also redeploy nurses who had gone back to school for specialised education to the respective special units. “We have ICU nurses, renal nurses and anesthetists who have furthered their studies but are still not predesignated to the units,” noted Saka.