Six Confirmed Dead on Day Two of Nurses Nationwide Strike

By Juma Fredrick

Six patients have been confirmed dead as the nationwide strike involving Kenyan nurses entered two with both sides of the nurses and their employers maintains hard stands, diminishing all hopes of finding a solution in the near future.

Nurses across the country kicked off their strike on Monday to protest over unpaid allowances that had been agreed on in a return-to-work formula after their officials called off yet another nationwide strike last year.

Patients across the country have gone unattended to with all the six deaths coming from Mombasa County though there are fears that some cases in other counties are yet to be reported.

Nurses called off their strike last year after their officials reached an agreement with the government that they would be paid allowances amounting to 40.3 billion shillings every year, money that was to come from the taxpayer.

The nurses now blame the county governments for blackmailing them to go back to work only to pay them allowances for the month of January and closing the taps thereafter. The Council of Governors, through their Chairman, the Governor of Turkana County, Josephat Nanok, said that 40.3 billion shillings per year in form of salaries for the nurses alone was beyond implementation and that they were waiting for a go-ahead from the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) on the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA).

The most affected counties are Mombasa, Samburu,Homa Bay, Kisii, Nyamira, Migori, Vihiga, Kakamega and Busia with patients from the hospitals being discharged and left with nowhere to turn for help because majority of those who seek medical services from public health institutions are poor and cannot afford services from private hospitals.

The country has been hit by numerous strikes in the health sector which was devolved from the central government to the county governments. This year, the country went down in history by having one of the longest doctors’ strike since independence, one that last three months, which left many patients dead and thousands of others suffering.