City Hall promotes nurses, clinical officers to avert strike
Nurses during a protest at Uhuru Park in Nairobi on February 11, 2019. PHOTO | FILE | NATION MEDIA GROUP
What you need to know:
- Governor Mike Sonko had directed that all eligible workers be promoted within seven days.
- The promotions cost the county Sh99 million out of the Sh130 million budget that had been set aside for promotions.
City Hall has moved to avert a planned nurses and clinical officers’ strike after reaching a deal with their unions.
The Kenya Clinical Officers Union (Kuco) and Kenya National Union of Nurses (Knun) had last week issued a seven-day strike notice, which elapsed on Monday midnight.
The nurses and clinical officers threatened to down tools over stalled promotions.
On Wednesday, the county announced it had promoted 2,153 staff including nurses and clinical officers.
COMMON CADRE
Nairobi County acting Health Executive Vesca Kangogo said the staff belong to the common cadre.
Governor Mike Sonko had directed that all eligible workers be promoted within seven days. He also said that all officers whose job titles did not match with their current designations be re-designated.
She explained that the promotions and re-designations followed a meeting with representatives of the two unions on November 8, 2019.
“We are happy that we have nurses and clinical officers who have reported to work,” said Ms Kangogo on Wednesday.
She assured city residents that normal operations continue in all health facilities across the county.
“Normal operations are going on in Pumwani, Mama Lucy, Mbagathi, Dandora, Westlands dispensaries and other county health facilities,” she said.
PROMOTIONS
She pointed out that the promotions cost the county Sh99 million out of the Sh130 million budget that had been set aside for promotions.
The balance, said Ms Kangogo, will go towards the second phase of promotions that targets 600 officers not in the common cadre.
She said that the officers can only be promoted through competitive process as per the schemes of service, availability of vacancies and a budget.
“There are positions you cannot get promoted without going through a competitive process. For example, the position of a director of medical services is a competitive position which must be advertised and filled competitively,” she said.
She added that a lack of a fully constituted County Public Service Board made it difficult to implement four items contained in a return-to-work formula agreed on with the unions in March following a nationwide strike.
The board was finally constituted in July but official handover was done last week.
