Striking clinical officers have now asked their colleagues to stop working at Mathari hospital and the National Spinal Injury Hospital in Nairobi, where they have been offering services on compassionate grounds.
The Kenya Union of Clinal Officers made this decision to force the government to the negotiating table.
The clinical officers are seeking to sign a comprehensive bargaining agreement that will raise their salaries, and allowances and improve their employment rates.
They suffer the highest unemployment rates among all the other health workers.
Their strike began April 1, but the government has never met their leaders for any negotiations yet Afya House officials met with doctors and nurses.
“Our members have diligently maintained essential services at Mathari Hospital, Spinal Injury Hospital, Ports Health Authority and other vital institutions. However, after careful consideration and deliberation within our union organs, we have resolved to escalate our actions. Therefore, we hereby order all our members within the respective institutions to join the strike effective Thursday, May 16, 2024,” said Kuco secretary general George Gibore.
They have ten demands that should be “adequately and urgently” addressed.
“We trust that this action will draw attention to the pressing issues faced by our members and lead to meaningful dialogue and resolution,” Gibore said in the letter addressed to Health CS Susan Nakhumicha.
Kuco deputy secretary general Austin Oduor led the clinician's weekly protests in Nairobi on Tuesday.
He said they are demanding enhanced risk allowances of Sh15,000, restoration of Sh105,000 monthly stipend for degree clinical officer interns, which had been reduced to Sh50,000, and comprehensive medical insurance. Diploma interns are paid Sh35,000 a month.
They are also demanding promotions and the signing of the scheme of service by the Public Service Commission, outlining career progression guidelines.
“We also want the permanent and pensionable employment of the clinical officers on UHC contract, and more employment to end the shortage of clinical officers in public facilities,” Oduor said.
The strike is protected by the courts, which declined the government’s request to declare it illegal last month.
Yesterday, the Council of Governors first met with officials Gibore and chairman Peterson Wachira to try and finds a solution to the strike.
This was the first meeting with the clinicians since their strike began last month.
Kenya has about 32,000 clinical officers who have been registered and licensed to practise by the Kenya Clinical Officers Council.
However, the government has only employed about 7,800 while 800 are on contract.
Clinical officers work both as general practitioners and specialists from referral, specialist consultation, admission to the ward and general treatment services.
Early last month, acting director general for Health Patrick Amoth appeared to justify the government’s indifference to the clinical officers' plight.
Speaking on Citizen TV on April 4, Amoth said clinical officers are not recognised outside Kenya and should therefore go into other careers as a solution to their massive unemployment.
He said they are probably not needed because their training was started as a stop-gap measure when Kenya had a shortage of doctors.
“Is it prudent to continue on that path or we retrace our paths a little bit and help them to progress toward a different career path? Remember clinical officers were a stop-gap by the government to address the shortage of doctors. Now we have 3,000 unemployed doctors. Do we want to continue to produce clinical officers? Or do we retool them to a different path?” he said.
Clinical medicine in Kenya is offered at the diploma level by the Kenya Medical Training College and at the degree level in more than 10 universities.
The diploma programme started at the Kenyatta National Hospital in 1928 and was discontinued in 1952.
The training restarted in 1967 because of a shortage of doctors and has expanded to date.
The training covers medicine, surgery, paediatrics, obstetrics and gynaecology, community health, rural health and health service management, among others.
It is recognised in law and there is a Clinical Officers Council that is charged with training registration and licensing COs. Clinicians fall somewhere between nurses and doctors in the clinical hierarchy and are allowed to perform some invasive procedures.