Medics in Siaya down tools over delayed salaries
Some of the patients who were turned away from the Siaya County Referral Hospital on February 21, 2018 after medics downed their tools protesting delayed salaries. PHOTO | TONNY OMONDI | NATION MEDIA GROUP
What you need to know:
Crisis looms in public hospitals in Siaya County as doctors, clinicians and nurses strike over salary delays.
The health workers want their January, February pay.
Patients in public hospitals in Siaya are scrambling for alternative sources of health service after medics went on strike Wednesday over delayed salaries.
Clinicians, nurses and medical doctors in the county vowed to stay away from work until the county government pays them their two month salary arrears.
SALARIES
County Secretary David Kanundu said the salaries were delayed for two months because of late disbursement of funds to the county from the national government.
Mr Kanundu said the funds came in on Wednesday and that the health workers would be paid immediately.
He pointed out that he was not aware of the medics strike “as they did not issue any strike notice”.
The health workers said they decided to down their tools after a meeting with county officials on Tuesday “failed to bear fruits”.
They said the county has not paid their January and February salaries and that such delays have been common in the last nine months.
Kenya National Union of Nurses Siaya branch secretary Sylvester Ng’anda said that they had received their February pay slips but no money has been remitted to their accounts.
HOPE
At the Siaya Referral Hospital, the main public health facility in the county, patients waited for hours hoping to be attended to.
Security officers barred journalists from taking videos or pictures inside the wards.
A patient, Mzee Titus Odundo told Nation he had come for a regular check-up his continual chest pains but found no one to attend to him. He said he opted to get some painkillers from a local pharmacy to ease his pain.
