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Kisii medics vow to withdraw services from Nduru hospital over unrest

At least five medical staffers were injured during the incident

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by Bosco Marita

News14 April 2023 - 12:57
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In Summary


  • The withdrawal of services follows the attack on staff sent Wednesday to transfer medical equipment from the hospital to Keumbu.
Kenya Clinicians Union, Kisii chair Lazarus Obwoge, flanked by other union branch officials during the a press briefing on Friday. The unions announced the withdrawal of medical staff from Nduru Hospital over Wednesday protests where five people were injured (IMAGE BY MAGATI OBEBO)

Various medical union officials from Kisii Friday ordered doctors, nurses, and clinicians working at Nduru Level Five Hospital in South Mugirango to begin leaving their stations of work over safety concerns.

The order follows the attack on medical staff sent to pick up medical equipment from the facility Wednesday afternoon.

At least five medical staffers were injured during the incident in which the residents, in hundreds, overran the facility protesting the transfer of some medical equipment outside the Sub-County.

 

Several cars among them one on which the said equipment was to be loaded was smashed at the parking lot.

Stones hurled by goons into the hospital during the violent skirmishes also damaged part of the World Bank-funded healthy facility.

On Friday, the medical union officials said the raids on the health facility bore the hallmark of political hooliganism.

"The Hospital environment is supposed to be a place of healing not a battleground for political supremacy battles between various protagonists," said Lazurus Obwoge, chair of Kenya Clinicians Union chair in a joint statement.

Obwoge said there was nothing wrong in the transfer of the equipment to save lives elsewhere because it was idle anyway.

"The borrowing of the anaesthesia machine was within the ethics governing sound provision of health care services. This was communicated officially through the Chief Officer to the Sub-County, so everything was being done in a fair and transparent manner," Obwoge told journalists outside Kisii Teaching and Referral Hospital morgue.

The union officials termed the act of politicians using goons to square out their wars within hospital settings as immoral.

"It was a shocker to learn that a mob was mobilized to attack the staff sent to pick up the equipment. Even more sickening was to hear them singing songs praising some area politician who had sent them," stated Obwoge.

The union officials said they have monitored the level of insecurity in hospitals in the region and now want security agencies to intervene.

"We especially want to know who is funding the goons," he said.

The equipment was being hauled to a hospital in Nyaribari Chache where one similar machine had run down.

They asked security agencies to speed up investigations and arrest the culprits even as they pushed area political leadership to come out and condemn the incident

Obwoge said the move to ask the medical staff to withdraw from Nduru would stand until the government guarantees them security.

The statement was also signed by KMPDU branch secretaries Dr. Aggrey Orwenyo, Victor Orwenyo, branch Secretary and Kenya Union of clinical officers.

Others were Bernard Mariari, Kenya National Union of Medical Laboratory Officers, Denis Bosire, Kisii Branch chair of Kenya Health Professional Society, and Moses Rianga, Branch Secretary of Kenya National Union.

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