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Health Cabinet Secretary Deborah Mulongo has assured the Government is burning the midnight oil to avert a looming health workers’ strike.

Addressing the press after closing the East African Community Workshop on Health Professions Harmonisation of Regulation at the Kenya School of Government, Mombasa, the CS assured the public the government was engaging healthcare workers’ unions with a view of arriving at a mutual understanding.

“We are aware of the looming strike but we are engaging the various groups even right now we will be having a sitting with the clinical officers’ representatives…again the team, that is the state department of Public Health and professional standards is routinely engaging to ensure that we avert the strikes,”  Mulongo told journalists in Mombasa on Friday.

The assurance by the CS came even as nurses plan to down their tools on Monday across all 47 counties if the Ministry of Health fails to release Sh11 billion intended to employ Universal Health Coverage (UHC) nurses on permanent and pensionable terms.

Kenya National Union of Nurses and Midwives (KNUNM) General Secretary Seth Panyako accused the Ministry of Health of withholding Sh11 billion, including Sh6.8 billion allocated for gratuity payments to UHC staff in county governments.

“While ministry-employed UHC staff have been absorbed, their county counterparts continue to languish under temporary contracts. We demand that the Ministry of Health releases the funds to county governments to permanently employ UHC staff. Enough is enough,” Panyako declared.

At the same time, early this week, the Kenya Union of Clinical Officers (Kuco) issued a 14-day- strike notice to protest among other concerns, discrimination and exclusion of clinical officers from offering services under Social Health Authority (SHA).

Return-to-work pact

Kuco National Chair Peterson Wachira further accused the national government and county government of refusing to implement the crucial return-to-work-agreement that ended the clinical officers’ strike which started in April last year and lasted for 99 days.

Speaking at a press briefing in Mombasa, Wachira said  that all the clinical officers across the country will down their tools effective the midnight of January 19, 2025, should the government not act.

 “The end of that strike was a return-to -work agreement that was mid-wifed and registered by the Employment and Labour Relations Court thereby becoming an order of the court. But the ministry and the county government have not fully implemented the return-to-work agreement, given that the deadline for implementation was the first day of September 2024.

“We have sent numerous letters but they have refused to respond. So we are saying they are in breach of the return to work agreement of 2024. And by that declare that we are calling a strike in the next 14 days that if by then we do not have an end to the impunity in the Social Health Authority and we do not have full implementation of the return-to-work agreement 2024, all the clinical officers  shall proceed on strike as from the midnight of January 19, 2025,” said Wachira who is the Health Union Caucus Chairperson.

Highest standards

According to the union, the government of Kenya through the Ministry of Health, SHA, alongside the Council of Governors and the 47 county governments have disenfranchised Kenyans by denying them access to healthcare by contravening article 43 the Kenyan Constitution which guarantees the right to the highest attainable standards of health.

Kuco General Secretary George Gibore said the situation has plunged Kenyans into suffering with most of them paying out-of-pocket exposing them to financial hardships against SHA and UHC objectives.

 The union alleged that clinical officers are being coerced to licence their facilities with Kenya Medical Practitioners Dentists Council (KMPDC) for their facilities to be empanelled or contracted against the law and subjecting them to double licensure.

 Specialized clinical officers, Gibore noted, are being forced to use KMPDC licence numbers from medical officers for pre-authorisation which is illegal and has resulted in extortion.

 “This is why we are saying this is regularised and institutionalised corruption and pursuit of self interests rather than common good. We have written numerous letters and petitions without any response,” the Kuco General Secretary stated.

At the same time, the CS acknowledged the shortage of the critical Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine, but assured that the vaccine will be available in the country in two weeks time.

“Yes we were having a shortage of BCG but by mid this month that is in two weeks time we will be having the vaccines in Kenya.

 On the human metapneumovirus (HMPV) outbreak in China, Mulongo allayed fears of an outbreak in Kenya noting that there is no single case reported.