Nurses demonstrate in Kisumu as patients across Nyanza continue to bear the brunt across the country / HANDOUT Kenya’s health workers - nurses and clinical officers - have been on strike for more than six weeks.
The industrial action has now entered a dangerous phase, with clinical officers now on strike for 44 days and nurses’ industrial action also disrupting public health services. This is no longer a labour dispute. It is a major national health emergency.
The Ministry of Health must understand a simple truth: a health service without medical staff is not universal health coverage.
Buildings, policies and equipment cannot treat patients. It is doctors, nurses, clinical officers and other health workers who turn healthcare promises into reality.
President William Ruto must personally weigh in and help broker a lasting solution. The poor long suffering citizen is the ordinary Kenyan patient who cannot afford private hospitals or insurance. For them, a closed ward or delayed treatment is not an inconvenience - it can be the difference between life and death.
The crisis has strained facilities such as Kenyatta National Hospital, where patient pressure has increased during the strike.
Reports of a baby’s death amid the disruption have caused public outrage, though the circumstances have been disputed and require proper verification.
Health Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale must move with urgency. Sit down with the unions, negotiate in good faith and strike a deal. Every day this standoff continues, lives are placed at risk.
Healthcare cannot wait for endless meetings while the Kenyans politicians pretend to care about suffers.
