Patients left to die as strike bites

The health crisis in Mombasa County has worsened after nurses, doctors, pharmacists and staff in other cadres deserted duties demanding an explanation of deductions from their July salaries and payment of their August dues.

As a result, Coast Provincial General Hospital, the biggest referral health institution in the region, on Monday completely shut down as a handful of patients who had been admitted there remained on their own with no services.

Also shut down was Port Reitz District Hospital, which hosts the second largest units for mental illness and for those fighting alcohol and drug addiction.

At Tudor and Likoni district hospitals, wards were on Monday shut with big padlocks.

GROANING IN PAIN

The sight at Coast General was the most pathetic. A Nation team found two critically ill patients groaning in pain in one ward while the rest of the beds were empty. No doctor or nurse was in sight.

“Please carry help carry my bed outside the veranda so that I can get some warmth from the sun,’’ said one elderly patient. “It is so cold in here. I have no one to take care of me.”

The woman said she had not been taken a bath for two weeks and that her relatives only bring her food and water to drink.

In the ward, there was a television set which was on. The sickly woman said it was her only company.

“The other day I watched President Uhuru eating at a hotel in Mombasa. Please tell him to come and help us we are dying,” she said.

The main gate to the hospital was locked with a large padlock, while wards one, two, six, five, seven and the emergency section were shut down.

Guards at the hospitals told patients who turned up to receive medical attention that the there were no health care workers on duty to serve them and that the institutions had been closed.

The Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union Coast Region Secretary-General Victor Teti and the Kenya National Union of Nurses Branch Secretary Peter Moroko said the workers would only return once the anomaly in their salaries is corrected.

They said the workers were back on the streets to protest against deductions Sh20,000 from doctors’ pay and Sh12,000 from nurses salaries.

Further, no one had been paid the August salary, the officials said, demanding that the county releases their payslips to enable them to confirm if even the dues for that month were affected.

Some nurses at Moi International Airport said their extraneous allowance had been deducted.

'NOT DEDUCTIONS'

Mombasa County officials said they had paid the striking health workers their July salaries and that the complaint of the deduction would be addressed.

“These are not deductions,” said Health executive Tendai Lewa. “They are some of the allowances that were not included in the July pay slips.”

He said those affected had been asked to contact his docket so that the matter is rectified in September salaries.

Mr Lewa said the county government had told the health workers to inform them of the issue last week but they did not do so on time. He said that the deduction was an administrative issue that would be resolved.

“It is not a big issue, we just need the details.” Not all health workers were affected, according to the official.

Governor Hassan Joho is expected to address the health crisis at a news conference on Tuesday, his personal assistant, Mr Mohamed Idris, told the Nation on Monday evening.

Port Reitz Hospital normally receives more than 500 outpatients daily. On Monday, angry patients including those struggling with alcohol addiction, continued to linger in the corridors of the institution as their relatives pleaded with caretakers to help them get their medication.

At Tudor Hospital, anxious tuberculosis and HIV patients gathered without hopes of getting their regular doses as no one was in sight to serve them. “I need ARVs, even if it means paying a doctor or a nurse to prescribe other alternatives. My health has deteriorated,” cried one HIV patient.