Patients denied services at Pumwani as nurses push on with strike
Pumwani Maternity Hospital in Nairobi. The Ministry of Health has launched a programme to help save lives and improve the health of expectant mothers and children. PHOTO | WILLIAM OERI |
What you need to know:
- Striking workers want security enhanced at the hosipital
They want the hospital to hire more nurses and redeploy the current health workers to other stations to restore public confidence in the hospital.
- The county leadership under Governor Evans Kidero has denied the existence of the strike.
But a spot check by Nation.co.ke on Monday revealed that patients were going without services.
Patients at Pumwani Maternity Hospital on Monday went unattended as a go-slow by nurses protesting insecurity entered day seven.
On Monday last week, relatives of a mother whose newborn died moments after delivery confronted nurses at the Nairobi hospital, demanding to know the cause of the death.
This came before the 186 health workers could clear their names in a case where a couple accused them of stealing its newborn twins and replacing them with dead ones in January.
Kenya National Union of Nurses Nairobi branch organising secretary Lenpike Mutunga Kioko said the strike was meant to push national and county governments to restore public trust in the hospital.
RESTORE CONFIDENCE
They want the hospital to hire more nurses and redeploy the serving ones to other stations to restore public confidence in the hospital.
But the county leadership, under Governor Evans Kidero, has denied the existence of the strike.
In a paid newspaper advert on Sunday, the county government said the strike had been called off and threatened to punish workers who would abscond duty.
But a spot check by Nation.co.ke on Monday revealed that patients were going without services.
SERVICE DENIED
“We arrived here by 8 in the morning, but we were not served,” said Mr Stanley Mutunga, the father of a four-month-old boy, who was scheduled to attend a well-baby clinic.
He complained that the hospital had denied him services even after charging him Sh50 for the service.
The patients were angry that the hospital administration had not communicated that they were not offering services, making them wait for hours.
Many left after the long wait failed to pay off.
FIST FIGHT
Meanwhile, county askaris engaged nurses, who were meeting their union officials at the hospital, in a fist fight on Monday.
Although none of the nurses was injured in the brawl, they proceeded to record statements at Shauri Moyo Police Station.
“We are not intending to end this sit-in and in fact we are considering enlisting all nurses from Nairobi County to fight for our demands,” said Mr Kioko.
