Kenya: Nurses push counties to surrender health docket

Kenya National Union of Nurses (KNUN) has continued with its push to have the health docket revert to national government.

The health workers union told the Senate Committee on Labour that there was no law to guide the management of the sector by the county governments, creating many loopholes that were hindering service delivery and leading to strikes.

The nurses during a strike. The Kenya National Union of Nurses (KNUN) has continued with its push to have the health docket revert to national government. (PHOTO: COURTESY)

KNUN Secretary General Seth Panyako maintained there is need to have a centralised commission that would handle the human resource aspect of the health workers, leaving the county governments to handle the infrastructural aspects.

Panyako told the committee chaired by Kilifi Senator Justice (retired) Steward Madzayo that such an arrangement can only be guided by an Act of Parliament, which he regretted was missing.

"As far as we are concerned, health was not transferred legally because we don't have a law which has transferred health as a function. We should have a statute guiding the shape of the transferred function," said Panyako.

The hearings came at a time a health crisis has persisted in the Mt Kenya region, with workers from Kirinyaga and Meru joining their counterparts in Nyeri County in a massive strike that has paralysed operations in public health institutions in the region.

The latest group to join the strike fray was from Meru, whose governor is Council of Governors (CoG) chairman Peter Munya. They began the strike yesterday with at least 10 grievances they want addressed before they can resume work.

The 1,600 health workers in Meru had issued a two-week strike notice on August 17 but the county had not formally responded by yesterday. Panyako told the Senate committee that due to lack of a proper framework, systematic promotion of nurses had stagnated thereby causing disquiet among union members who had resulted to industrial action.

At the weekend, Mr Munya had claimed the unions, including KNUN, were being funded by the national government to instigate strikes.

Madzayo appealed to the nurses to prioritise human life as they engage relevant parties to resolve the stalemate.

At the Meru hospital yesterday, intern health workers and casuals manned the wards while no in-patients were being attended to.

Health workers led a procession to Munya's office to present a petition. They said the governor was trying to divert issues by claiming that the national government was sponsoring industrial action in counties.

"We do not find any evidence that the counties funds for Health human resource are being held by the national government because no governor can demonstrate he has protested that anomaly," said KNUN Meru branch secretary Nesbitt Mugambi.

Other unions whose members had issued a strike notice was the Kenya Clinical Officers Association (KCOA), the Association of Medical Lab Officers (AMLO) and the Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentist Union (KMPDU).

"We expected the county government to engage us in formal structured dialogue but nobody has approached us yet," said Mugambi Bakari, who is the Meru branch chairman of KNUN.

The unions claimed Munya's government's had frozen annual increments and routine promotions, which they claimed affected 1,000 of their members and running back to the period before Health was devolved.

In Nyeri, workers have defied a directive by the county government to resume work after staying away for three weeks.

The county government was racing against time to end the stalemate that has seen most of the hospitals closed due to the industrial action.

Nyeri Governor Nderitu Gachagua was holed up in his office yesterday trying to resolve the crisis which has led to patients seeking services at private hospitals.

Medics in Kirinyaga downed their tools over alleged non-payment of their allowances.