Health workers from Uasin Gishu County demonstrate in Eldoret town after a countrywide strike started on Tuesday. Photo/JARED NATAYA
By EDWIN MUTAI, emutai@ke.nationmedia.com
Health workers want the government to publish a legal notice committing itself to process payments of salaries for the next six months to call off the strike.
They also want Parliament to ensure that the State commits to address all pending issues within the next two months.
“We demand that the unions be dully involved during the preparation of the health policy, public service policy and the Health Bill,” Kenya Medical Practitioners Pharmacists and Dentists Union (KMPDU) secretary general Sultani Matendechere said.
KMPDU, the Kenya Health Professionals Union and Kenya National Union of Nurses met with the National Assembly health committee and demanded that the processing and payment of emoluments be handled by the national government until the enactment of the Health Bill.
In a compromise struck, the health workers demanded that the health policy, the Public Service Policy and the Health Bill be enacted by February next year.
“If this legal notice is published as agreed today, we will call off the strike by tomorrow morning (Thursday),” Dr Matendechere told the committee chaired by Rachael Nyamai.
The committee called the meeting to try and arbitrate on the stand-off between the health workers and governors, which has led to a paralysis of services in public health institutions.
READ: MPs censure governors as strike paralyses health services
Health workers begun a nationwide strike on Tuesday after talks on the handling of devolved health functions collapsed on Monday.
Governors are demanding full devolution of health services while health workers insist on the devolution to be phased over a period of three years as provided in the Constitution.
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