Death and agony after health workers begin countrywide boycott

Services were paralysed in most hospitals on Tuesday as a strike called by health workers began to bite.

Two patients died and those streaming to various hospitals country wide either went back home or milled around the facilities looking for help.

In some institutions, guards chased away patients, saying they were under instructions to keep gates closed.

Officials from unions representing nurses and doctors also went round hospitals urging members to boycott work. The health workers are protesting against plans to transfer them to county governments. They prefer to be employed by the national government.

The Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentists Union, the Kenya Health Professionals Union, the Kenya National Union of Nurses and the Union of Kenya Clinical Officers maintained yesterday that they will not call off the strike until their demands are met.

ALMOST DIED

“We provided avenues to negotiate with the national and county government until late into in the night but it bore no fruits,” health professionals secretary-general Moses Lorre said on Tuesday.

But as the stand-off continued, patients bore the brunt of the strike.

At the Coast General Hospital in Mombasa , two critically injured patients almost died outside the emergency unit when workers refused to treat them.

However, they were assisted by the hospital administrator Bernard Mwero and his deputy who came to their rescue to avoid “bad publicity.”

In Taita Taveta County, three level four hospitals remained paralysed after health workers joined the national strike.

Speaking to the Nation in Voi town,  the Taita Taveta nurses union boss Bernard Mnjala said they were ready to go to work once their unions and the government agree on the way forward.

“We are not against devolution but the problem is that they have slashed our salaries by over Sh20,000 by placing us under the county government,” he said.

In Kilifi county, public hospitals remained deserted on Tuesday as doctors and nurses kept off. Kilifi county director of health Anisa Omar could not be reached for comment as junior officers in her office said she was out of the town.

In Nyeri, area health boss Silas Njoroge, denied reports that at least one patient died as a result of the health workers strike.

Dr Njoroge said the patient was in casualty and his condition was deteriorating and denied that the man died as a result of neglect. However, premature babies at the hospital were transferred to private clinics.

In Western Kenya, services in public hospitals came to a standstill on Tuesday due to the boycott. The practitioners from Nyanza, Western and the South Rift regions asked the government to reconsider the decision to take them to counties.

UNATTENDED

The most affected include Kakamega, Kisii, Bomet, Kisumu, Migori and Nyamira  counties. Most patients were sent away from hospitals while the admitted ones went unattended — including new mothers who had delivered on Monday night as well as their newborns.

Chaos erupted at Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Teaching and Referral Hospital (Russia) in Kisumu as mothers were dramatically pushed out of the children’s wards by security guards.

The security guards said they were acting on a directive from the hospital’s medical superintendent Dr Juliana Otieno, and would not tolerate any resistance from patients.

Due to the crisis patients flocked private facilities in Kisumu like Aga Khan and Avenue Hospital as well as health centres previously run by the Kisumu Municipality.

In Kakamega, the strike crippled services forcing families to collect their sick relatives from wards at the Kakamega provincial hospital.

The abandoned wards were later closed by guards. Social workers and a team from the St John’s Ambulance transported some of the stranded patients.

Reported by Joy Wanja, Moses Odhiambo, Muchiri Gitonga, Benson Amadala, Anita Chepkoech, Geoffrey Rono, Kazungu Samuel, Jonathan Manyindo, Sammy Lutta, Jackline Moraa, James Kariuki, David Macharia, Joyce Kimani, Henry Nyarora, Copperfield Lagat, Philip Bwayo, Tom Matoke, Wycliff Kipsang, Mercy Tumkou and Raphael Wanjala.