Health workers during street demonstrations in Eldoret /FILE
Hospital services have been disrupted across the North Rift as a strike by nurses, clinical officers and laboratory technicians enters its third week.
The Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital has recorded an increased number of patients as county hospitals in Uasin Gishu, Nandi, Trans Nzoia, Elgeyo Marakwet and Baringo struggle to provide services.
The unions representing the health workers have threatened to extend the industrial action to private hospitals this week if county governments do not resolve their grievances.
The threat came as bishops and Muslim religious leaders called on the government to urgently intervene and end the strike, saying the dispute was putting patients’ lives at risk.
The religious leaders, led by Reverend Thomas Kiptoo and Abubakar Bini, urged the government and health workers to return to the negotiating table.
“Health is a very critical sector concerning lives and the government should have stopped everything to deal with this matter,” Bini said.
He said resources being spent on non-core operations should instead be directed towards resolving the grievances raised by the health workers.
The unions have cited unresolved issues including the delayed conclusion of the 2025-29 collective bargaining agreement, implementation of the 2017 return-to-work agreement and absorption of universal health coverage workers into permanent and pensionable terms.
Delayed promotions and failure to remit statutory deductions are also among the issues raised by the unions.
Kenya National Union of Nurses official Kevin Kimutai and Kenya Union of Clinical Officers official Xavious Wamalwa led the demonstrations in Eldoret, promising that the workers would not return to duty until their grievances were addressed.
Wamalwa said the unions were already engaging their colleagues in the private sector to broaden the strike.
“We are talking to our colleagues in the private sector so that we join hands to push for our demands and rights aimed at improving health services,” he said.
Kimutai said nurses remained the backbone of healthcare delivery and warned that hospitals would face even greater disruption if the dispute dragged on.
“We have been negotiating for a long time to avert the strike. We will not resume work until our demands are met,” he said.
“It is our desire as health workers to serve patients without such disruptions, but we cannot do so if our rights are ignored.”
Wamalwa said county governments should sign CBAs with all the unions before healthcare workers could return to duty.
He said patients continued to suffer because counties had failed to resolve issues that had been under negotiation for a long time.
“Unless they deal with our issues, there will be no work at all in county hospitals,” he said.
He said repeated negotiations had yielded little progress, leaving the unions with no option but to continue the strike and consider expanding it to private hospitals if their demands remained unresolved.
