Health Cabinet Secretary Susan Nakhumicha has pleaded with health workers to end the strike and allow the government to come up with solutions.
She said health workers should understand that the country’s economy is in a bad state, resulting in salary delays.
“We will continue speaking to them. The health workers are not foreigners in this country. They live in this country. The President has said as a country we are in a bad state regarding the economy,” Nakhumicha said.
“So it’s for them to allow discussions to continue and for the president to steer the country towards economic recovery so that some of these issues can be taken care of.”
She said the work of the national level is to mediate and negotiate that whatever the workers are asking for, the governors will be able to provide.
“Health is devolved. The counties do service delivery. We at the national level provide policies, guidelines and directives,” Nakhumicha said.
“So when it comes to the relationship between an employer and an employee especially for the health workers in the counties then their employer is the county.”
Further, she said that the Ministry of Health would implement a new council that will advise the president and the ministry on matters regarding health workers.
“But in the long term, we are operationalising something called Kenya Health Human Resource Advisory Council so that it can advise the ministry, the president in terms of how do we deal with health workers across the country,” Nakhumicha said.
She said the Kenya Health Human Resource Advisory Council would also assist the ministry in terms of placement of specialists especially those in scarce areas.
“That there must be some form of harmonization, in terms of how we deal with them. There must be some form of management of their welfare. Besides the county doing what they are doing,” Nakhumicha said.
This comes after health workers issued a statement saying that they will not be attending to work scheduled as of April 19, due to the non-payment of their previous month's salaries and statutory deductions.
They also cited occasional salary payment delays in other months as their reason for striking.
The unions said the health workers are in a difficult financial situation and “as a result, they are unable to meet their daily needs, including transportation, food, and accommodation expenses”.
