Kenya National Union of Nurses (KNUN) Nyamira County branch executive secretary Richard Oruta has threatened to call for an indefinite strike of all medics in Nyamira if the county government does not recruit more health workers immediately.
Oruta said on Monday that there was need to address under staffing in all health facilities in the county.
The warning comes even after the devolved unit handed over appointment letters to over 150 health staff who were employed recently.
Among the 150 appointees, 60 are nurses, 10 clinical officers while the rest are widespread across the various health disciplines, including administrators.
He claimed that health workers in the county were being overworked because of the big number of patients that needed healthcare services.
According to Oruta, quality of healthcare services delivery was being compromised due to poor human resource distribution in all the healthcare facilities.
“It is a matter of serious concern that most of our members are overworked and yet their terms of employment are not well defined to suit the working conditions," he said.
Meanwhile, governor John Nyagarama while addressing the just-employed staff on Monday promised to address the issue of under staffing as soon as possible to ease workload on the few staff.
He thanked the new recruits for doing their best in helping residents through effective service delivery.
The governor noted that as much as the medical staff were expected to remain committed to their work, the sector faced a myriad of challenges due to under staffing.
“That is why, through our other partners, we are considering offering about 150 more jobs to qualified medics as a way of bridging the staffing gap,” promised Nyagarama.