GOVERNORS now have permission to replace striking health workers if they refuse to return to work.
In a statement yesterday, President Uhuru Kenyatta gave the governors the go-ahead to hire new staff to replace those on strike so that services resume in all public hospitals.
Uhuru asked the governors to “make urgent alternative arrangements to ensure all health facilities in their Counties are manned and operational. Kenyans have a right to receive essential services and this is not a matter to be negotiated.”
Uhuru described the strike as “unacceptable and against the principles of humanity.”
Uhuru asked the striking health workers to resume work immediately ad relieve the anguish that Kenyans were enduring. Scores of patients, new mothers and babies have died without medical attention.
Yesterday, Uhuru asked the doctors and their union leaders to think of the suffering of thousands of Kenyans instead of their personal interests.
“Whatever differences exist, we have to put human life above all other interests. We definitely cannot allow men, women and children to continue living each day fearing the worst for themselves and their loved ones as a result of disagreements that can easily be resolved by following the law. I particularly call on governors and public health workers to speedily resolve the stand-off,” he appealed.
The doctors and nurses have been on strike to protest the devolution of health services where their salaries are now managed by county governments.
“The essence of devolution especially of health services is to bring services closer to the people. We must therefore give devolution a chance to work,” Uhuru said.
Responding to the President’s statement, the secretary general of the Kenya National Union of Nurses Seth Panyako said it showed “political expediency.”
“Such statements don’t help resolve the stalemate, but they worsen the situation and makes us angry. We know the governors are arm-twisting the president to make such declarations,” Panyako said.
He said the striking workers expected the president to explain how his government would establish a Health Service Commission, a national health policy, and laws to guide devolution of health services.
“We did not expect mere political statements,” he said, adding that no health workers had received letters seconding them to the counties.
Panyako said the Public Service Commission had employed the doctors and nurses, and therefore the executive could not threaten to sack them.
National Gender and Equality Commission chair Winfred Lichuma appealed to the health workers to return to work.
Lichuma urged governors, executive and county governments to drop their hardline stance and negotiate.
She said that while the constitution provided for the devolution of health services but also for uniform norms and standards.
“Healthcare providers have a right to demand for a framework within which their services are devolved but nevertheless they must respect court processes,” she said.
Meanwhile the Kenyatta National Hospital maternity wing is struggling to cope with numerous premature babies brought to the hospital for lack of life-saving services at the public hospitals. Designed to care for 40 babies, the hospital now has over 120 with more being admitted.
- The Star
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