The government has been urged to allocate Sh4 billion to end the nationwide clinical officers strike that has paralysed operations in hospitals.
Kenya Union of Clinical Officers national chairperson Peterson Wachira said the government has neglected them.
The clinical officers demands include complete CBA negotiations, promotion and re-designation, hiring of UHC staff on permanent and pensionable terms and payment of interns. Others are comprehensive medical cover, enhanced risk allowance and abolishment of illegal punitive hospital board contracts.
Wachira spoke in Bungoma on Thursday during a peaceful demonstration.
He said clinicians need Sh3.51 billion for conversation of the UHC staff to permanent and pensionable terms and Sh900 million for the enhancement of the risk allowance.
“We basically need Sh4 billion to end the clinical officers strike. The other day we saw MP Ndindi Nyoro, the budget committee chairman in the National Assembly, saying they have allocated about Sh10 billion to absorb the JSS teachers and today the UHC staff are wondering is they are children of a lesser God,” Wachira said.
“Why is it that they can absorb Junior Secondary School teachers but fail when it comes to the Universal Health Coverage staff?”
He said the Ministry of Health and county governments have for a very long time neglected clinicians and it is time the employers act to curb frequent strikes.
“We are not happy to dance in the sun in Bungoma county. We are here because today is the 60th day of our strike,” Wachira said.
He said they will continue with the strike until their demands are met.
“There is no dignity at work if we can be employed and paid lower salaries than our peers, yet we are doing the work of equal value. There is no respect at work if we cannot have a comprehensive cover to allow us to get the same medical attention we give to our clients,” Wachira said.
In Kisii, clinical officers from Nyanza declared they will not relent on pressurising the government to improve their working conditions.
They accused the government of laxity in coming up with a workable return-to-work formula, just like it did with the doctors.
Kenya Union of clinical Officers secretary general George Gibore accused the government of unwilling to finalise on their CBA, which started in 2017.
Citing previous strike and negotiations since 2019, he urged the government to meet its end of the bargain on the CBA.
Gibore urged the employer to desist from victimising them as per the court order of May 9 this year and not to institute disciplinary measures informed by virtue of the ongoing strike, including show cause letters, stoppage of salaries and arbitrary transfers.
National deputy secretary of the union Austin Oduor said the strike will continue until their demands are met.
He said they will not engage on anything less with the governors, considering they see 99 per cent of patients and are custodians of anaesthesia for surgery patients, who are now forced to seek services in private hospitals.
