Kisumu nurses on strike in Kisumu in the past /FILEThe continuing health workers’ strikes across several counties should force Kenya to rethink how it manages its public health workforce.
Devolution meant, among other things, that disputes involving health workers would largely be handled at county level. A strike in one county would not affect services in another. But studies have found weaknesses in recruitment, pay, human resource management and the handling of grievances across the 47 counties.
That is why Kenya should consider a Health Services Commission, but it must proceed with caution.
A powerful commission could create exactly the problem devolution was meant to avoid. Kenya could end up with one national employer and one national bargaining table. If talks broke down, health workers could shut down public health services across the country at once.
That would be a frightening return to the old days of national health strikes.
The answer, therefore, is not simply to create a health version of the Teachers Service Commission.
The new body should leave counties with meaningful responsibility for employment and day-to-day management of health workers.
Kenya should not return to the old days where health workers easily refused postings to places such as northern Kenya because working conditions are difficult.
There is already a basis for such an approach. The Kenya Health Human Resource Advisory Council was established to help standardise welfare and schemes of service, handle transfers and address other workforce problems. It can be made a permanent commission.
Quote of the Day: “Nothing is built on stone; all is built on sand, but we must build as if the sand were stone. —Argentine short-story writer of fiction, essayist and poet Jorge Luis Borges was born on August 24, 1899
