Homa Bay medics call off strike after agreement with county government

Homa Bay county government has called on the residents to continue seeking medication in public health facilities after they reached an agreement with medics.

The devolved unit agreed with the medical doctors to continue providing services to the people at public health facilities after clearing the salary arrears they demanded.

Health chief officer Kevin Osuri said the county government is going to address grievances the health workers had raised.

The Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union (KMPDU), on Friday, announced to its members in Homa Bay to stop the work over several issues.

Nyanza region KMPDU chairman Onyango Ndong’a and the union’s Liaison Officer in Homa Bay Ochieng’ Otana wanted salary delay, failure to remit their statutory deductions, lack of promotion and removal of their colleagues from the payroll addressed.

The medics are also agitating against the shortage of doctors in the county.

Homa Bay has 65 doctors with over 1.1 million people.

“The strike will go on until the Homa Bay government sorts out the issues,” Ndong’a said then.

Otana decried late payment of salaries saying some of their members had not received their December salaries.

“The salaries of December were paid from January 9 but there are some of us who have not received their salaries to date,” Otana said.

But speaking on Tuesday, Osuri said they had reinstated all health workers who presented valid employment documents after being removed from the payroll in August last year.

“The county government conducted an audit of workers and some health workers were also affected by being removed from the payroll. We have reinstated all the health workers who had presented genuine employment documents,” Osuri said.

Osuri said they had addressed the salary issue adding that all health workers who deserve promotions will be promoted by October.

He urged residents to seek medication at public health facilities because medics would attend to them. Downing tools would have paralyzed services at public health facilities across the county.

“We also agreed to strengthen communication with health workers to ensure thorny issues are addressed before they culminate in strikes. Let Homa Bay residents seek medication at public health facilities,” Osuri said.

Other health workers from various cadres including clinical officers, nurses, laboratory technologists and nutritionists said they had agreed with their employer on the major issues which formed their grievances.

The National Deputy Secretary of the Kenya Union of Clinical Officers Austin Oduor said they agreed to suspend the strike.

Oduor said they came to the agreement in a crisis meeting that was convened by the County Secretary Bernard Muok and Osuri.

Oduor said they agreed that the county government is going to begin addressing their grievances.

Their grievances included the failure of their employer to implement the promotion of their deserving members.

Other grievances included delay of salaries, failure to remit statutory deductions and the demand to reinstate their colleagues who were removed from the payroll.

“The employer has a formula for addressing the grievances we presented to them. We therefore suspend the strike,” Oduor said.