Nurses adamant as salary row enters day 8

Nurses, on strike in a week-long pay dispute, picket in Nairobi on June 12, 2017. PHOTO | EVANS HABIL | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • According to the draft CBA, nurses are demanding monthly allowances totalling to Sh25,400 each.
  • The allowances include Sh15,400 health risk allowance, Sh5,000 extraneous allowance, and Sh5,000 responsibility allowance.
  • The health workers also want a Sh50,000 uniform allowance, paid once annually.

The suffering of patients in public hospitals is unlikely to end soon after nurses and governors on Monday maintained their hardline positions over the signing of a draft collective bargaining agreement.

Nurses representatives drawn from across the country marched to the Council of Governors (CoG) offices in Westlands, Nairobi, where they handed over a petition.

There was no governor to receive them, but an officer from the legal department assured them that the heads of counties would look into the pay proposals.

They also presented copies of the petition to the Salaries and Remuneration Commission, as well as the Ministry of Health.

Duncan Ochieng' crawls back to his bed at Kisumu County Hospital on June 8, 2017. PHOTO | ONDARI OGEGA | NATION MEDIA GROUP

Kenya National Union of Nurses (Knun) acting secretary-general Maurice Opetu maintained that the striking medical workers would only resume work after the agreement with governors is signed and deposited in court.

FRUSTRATING DEAL

He said the national government and governors were “frustrating” the deal agreed upon in March this year.

“On Thursday last week, representatives from the Council of Governors and the Cabinet secretary for Labour, Ms Phyllis Kandie, refused to show up for a meeting with us,” said Mr Opetu. “This is a clear indication that the national government and governors are unwilling to sign the CBA.”

According to the draft CBA, nurses are demanding monthly allowances totalling to Sh25,400 each.

A patient lies on the floor as she awaits to be discharged from the Coast Provincial General Hospital in Mombasa on June 12,2017. Most wards have been closed as patients seek treatment from other facilities following the nationwide nurses' strike. PHOTO | WACHIRA MWANGI | NATION MEDIA GROUP

The allowances include Sh15,400 health risk allowance, Sh5,000 extraneous allowance, and Sh5,000 responsibility allowance.

The health workers also want a Sh50,000 uniform allowance, paid once annually.

But the SRC, which must approve the salary demands before they are effected, has said it will not do so as the drafters of the CBA ignored its advice.

EIGHTH DAY

As the push-and-pull continues, patients are bearing the brunt of the strike, now in its eighth day. In Samburu, the county government has hired nurses from the Africa Medical and Research Foundation (Amref) to fill the gap.

The nurses have been stationed in the sensitive and delicate maternity and injection areas of Samburu County Referral Hospital, which had been paralysed by the nurses’ strike.

In Wajir, the county nurses union branch secretary, Mr Siyad Abdi, said the government should stop intimidating his peers whenever they raise welfare questions.

Patients at the Coast Provincial General Hospital, Mombasa on June 12, 2017. PHOTO | WACHIRA MWANGI | NATION MEDIA GROUP

“Every sector has a disciplinary process that needs to be followed, but in Wajir County one is punished without any warning,” he said.  “Some of us are transferred  to other difficult areas to work once we raise these questions.”

REMAINED DESERTED

In Nakuru, public health facilities remained deserted, but patients were attended to at the Langalanga Health Centre, where nurses hired last December by the county government were on duty.

At Nakuru Level Five Hospital, a few patients sat in the outpatient section, which is usually busy. Only those seeking outpatient services or having appointments with doctors were allowed into the facility.

A few patients, now dependent on nursing students and members of the support staff, were still in the wards.  

-Additional reporting by Godfrey Oundo, Magdalene Wanja, Bruhan Makong, and Steve Njuguna