Health workers’ strike bites as nurses, officials trade accusations

Patients with their relatives at the Coast General Hospital after nurses downed their tools last Thursday demanding better pay and working conditions. Most of the patients have been discharged with the management contracting some community health workers to assist the doctors. [PHOTOS/GIDEON MAUNDU/STANDARD]

Mombasa, Kenya - More than 80 per cent of health services at the Coast General Hospital have been grounded following the ongoing nurses’ and midwives’ strike.

 

The ripple effect of the strike is now being felt across the six coastal counties.

The hospital is the largest facility in the region and admits serious referral cases from the other counties.

Meanwhile, Port Reitz, Tudor, Mlaleo and Likoni district hospitals are also not in operation after the estimated 1,600 nurses went on strike, leaving all operations to doctors and clinical officers who are overwhelmed.

Yesterday, Coast General Hospital officials said referral cases from other counties were turned down and that 250 patients out of 340 admitted before the strike began on Friday had been discharged.

The strike is the third industrial action by the nurses in Mombasa since health services were devolved.

The nurses are demanding delayed statutory deductions to the National Social Security Fund, National Hospital Insurance Fund and union dues be remitted before they can resume work.

They also accused the county government of failure to pay union allowances and failure to promote them.

But last evening, a statement from Governor Hassan Joho’s office termed the strike as an act of sabotage, alleging some of the demands are untenable and that most of the grievances have been fully or partially met.

blackmail

The county government faulted the nurses for going on strike over uniform allowance. It further said it is impractical to promote all the nurses at the same time.

The officials also termed the union’s demand to have pending dues paid through vouchers or Mpesa as illegal.

According to the statement, most of the NSSF and NHIF money had been paid and the balance is to be paid at the end of the month.

They accused the nurses of blackmailing the county government for closely monitoring and supervising them.

Last week, the Senate Committee on Health, which visited the hospital, questioned the county administration’s decision to re-channel the conditional grant for the hospital to other uses.

Mombasa received Sh414 million as conditional grant for the hospital in 2013/2014 and in the current financial year it received Sh213 million, which the county says is not enough to run a referral hospital, leading to the now perennial strikes.

The Standard found a body of a man at the deserted casualty ward yesterday, which the officials said was dumped there by unknown people on Saturday night.

“We have learnt the body is of a suspected robber killed by the public and was brought in last night and dumped here by unknown people. He did not die because of the strike,” said County Chief Health officer Khadija Shikelly.

The Standard could not, however, independently confirm Dr Shikelly’s claims.

“Bodies of those who have died are taken to the mortuary and not wards. We are not aware of the one you are referring to,” said a doctor who requested to remain anonymous.

He described the situation at the hospital as “terrible”, even as the  county government revealed that the ripple effect of the strike had started to be felt in the five counties.

“The strike has begun to have a negative effect on all the counties at the Coast because Coast General is a referral hospital. Serious cases referred here are being turned back,” said Binti Omar, the county executive member in charge of Health.

At the orthopaedic section, patients with bone fractures were in pain as there was no one to attend to them as majority had only received painkillers on Friday.

“My hand has started to decay. I bought the drugs myself but they have not been administered since Friday and the pain is unbearable,” said Albert Ngewa, who had a fractured left hand as a result of an accident on April 8.

Mr Ngewa is one of the patients staying put at the hospital despite being discharged.

“We’ve been here since Friday, hoping that some help will come our way. There is no one to attend to us,” said Amina Mohamed, a patient at the gynaecology department.