The Health Sector Caucus has handed over a notice of a 21-day strike to the county governments. It stated that the Council of Governors (CoG) administration's inaction on issues that matter the most to health workers across the country had necessitated such an extreme response from the CoG.
Over five unions representing health workers under the caucus charter have blamed the governors for opposing the idea of converting Universal Health Coverage (UHC) staff into permanent and pensionable terms of service.
The report of the unions further states that numerous workers engaged in the UHC program have been suffering a lack of job security and confined in their career progression due to their short-term contracts for a prolonged period.
In their declaration, the unions issued a call to prompt conversion of all UHC staff into permanent and pensionable terms no later than the last day of September 2025; along with the issuing of appointment letters, they should be going back to July of this year.
They claimed that county governments ill-treated the aggrieved even after they had raised issues such as late salaries, lack of promotions, and the nonexistence of clear career progression guidelines.
Namely, the caucus noted that “the continued mistreatment of health workers by county administrations is unacceptable. We are certain that the governors will either act decisively to resolve these issues thus avoiding the risk of a full-blown health crisis or not.”
The unions requested the National Assembly and the Senate to conduct inquiries into the allegations of county government abuse of health workers; they also requested the lawmakers to find long-term resolutions that will guarantee the welfare of frontline staff.
In case of the imminent strike unfolding as expected, health services will then be among the many sectors affected, and thereby public hospitals will be knocked out of action across all counties where this will happen only a few months after the same kind of strike has been experienced.
