Patients turned away as medics resume strike

Public hospitals in Nyeri and Embu counties turned patients away as nurses and doctors downed their tools following a promotion and salaries row.

In Nyeri County, all the nurses want to be promoted before they resume duty.

They claim the county has not hired or promoted nurses since the advent of devolution in 2013 and that more than 400 nurses had left the county’s hospitals for greener pastures or retirement.

They are also lamenting that the working conditions at the hospitals are wanting.

“We are disadvantaged, demoralised and fatigued. Nurses in other counties are asking for promotions for the second time,” Ms Beatrice Nduati, the branch secretary of the Kenya National Union of Nurses, said.

RECRUITMENT
The Nyeri County Health Executive, Charles Githinji, however, blamed the nurses’ strike on politics.

He defended the county government, saying that he held several meetings with the nurses to address their grievances, only for the nurses to defy his call and go on strike.

“We made them understand that the process of recruitment and promotions had started,” said Dr Githinji.

He attributed the delays to the County Public Service Board, whose members are embroiled in a row that is currently playing out in court.

He said the board was currently barred from holding any meetings.

SALARY ARREARS
In Embu County, doctors in public hospitals are on a go-slow in a bid to pressure the government to pay them their three-month salary arrears.

The medics have been camping outside Governor Martin Wambora’s office every morning since Monday to push the government to pay them their January, February and March salaries.

Led by Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentist Union (KMPDU) Upper Eastern secretary-general Mark Ndung’u, the doctors said they had been victimised for going on strike with other medics countrywide.

He wondered why doctors in Embu were being denied their dues while others in the country had been paid.

“We will camp here every morning to seek audience over the withheld salaries,” said Dr Ndung’u. “There was a directive to pay the salary arrears but they are not showing any signs of paying us.”

SENT HOME
He said there were indications that they would be paid the April salaries but without the negotiated increment.

A spot check by the Nation revealed that most hospital wards were empty with only a few patients waiting to be collected by their relatives.

At the Nyeri Referral Hospital, only eight mothers with their children in the nurseries were left behind. Other patients had been sent home or to other hospitals.
Relatives were asked to look for alternative hospitals for treatment.