Nurses protesting against poor pay. Pho/allafrica.comRecurrent strikes threatening hospital operations and Kenyans’ lives is an indicator counties cannot satisfactorily manage the health sector, a Jubilee official has said.
Jubilee Kisumu chapter chairman Zuberi Odhiambo said on Thursday the continuous industrial actions by health workers over pay shows governors cannot manage one of Kenya’s most important sectors.
He said health management should thus be returned to the national government.
“From the time devolution’s implementation began the health sector has suffered the most when it comes to strikes,” Odhiambo said at a press conference in Kisumu.
“Governors have evidently failed and the the best way to save this sector is by returning its management to the national government.”
He spoke as the nurses’ strike entered its fourth day. Nurses are on strike demanding for the implementation of the Collective
Bargaining Agreement (CBA) they signed with the government over salary increases.
Their strike comes less than three months after doctors called off a similar action that targeted at compelling government implement a CBA signed with the government earlier on. The medics were demanding a 300 percent salary increment.
By the time the nurses’ industrial action entered its fourth day nine lives had already been lost due to lack of healthcare service. Out of the nine death cases seven occurred at the Coast Provincial Teaching and Referral Hospital.
Among those who died was a doctor’s a one-year-old child who passed on in Kakamega.
Nurses have vowed unless the CBA is implemented they will not return to work.