Patients coming to seek treatment in the city of Nairobi have been left stranded due to a strike by nurses and laboratory technicians who have joined other medical officers in a trade dispute.
The industrial action, which has since spread to all cadres of healthcare practitioners, has been fueled by what unions term as continued salary delays and lingering welfare issues. Meanwhile, with public hospitals more or less crippled, some health facility administrators have no choice but to recruit doctors and specialists on a locum basis.
Hospital administrators have described the current situation as having put them between a rock and a hard place thereby presenting them with very difficult decisions between which to pay salaries and purchase essential commodities like drugs.
Doctors were the first to lay down their tools on December 18, with clinical officers following on December 23. Exactly twenty-five days later, nurses and lab technicians also went on strike, thereby bringing a complete shut down in county-run health facilities in Nairobi.
In the important referral hospital of Mbagathi Level 5, the impact is equally severe. The medical facility is strained to deal with the influx of referred cases from other smaller health facilities, causing long queues of those seeking health care with little health provision and empty corridors as health professionals stay away.
On the other hand, the Mutuini Sub-County Hospital in Dagoretti South is still providing limited services, but at a very expensive cost to the facility, which had to employ some medics on locum jobs in order to continue providing services.
“One of the factors that has impacted on our institution is having to search for funds to pay locum staff so that they can help keep us going during this strike,” stated CEO of Mutuini Sub-County Hospital, Martin Wafula. “We have intentionally engaged some of our doctors on locum. At present, we have four doctors working on locum and three anaesthetists working in theatre, so our theatre is open 24 hours a day and we are handling emergency cases.”
Employees in the health sector have accused the management under Governor Johnson Sakaja of not doing enough to respond to concerns about their welfare, causing strikes in the health sector.
People living with chronic conditions are some of the most severely affected, as the availability to specialized care has been disrupted.
“Patients with chronic conditions are some of the biggest concerns we have because we shall not be able to reach the consultants because they too are on strike,” Dr. Wafula said. This creates a ripple effect on the patient’s health as the hospital will have to come up with solutions after the strike ends.
The Nairobi county government has termed the strike unlawful and given an ultimatum to health personnel to return to their duties within 12 hours or face disciplinary measures.
The officials, however, have stated that they will not go back to work before all pending payments have been settled and their grievances are taken care of.
According to the officials, the Sakaja government has seen more industrial actions by healthcare workers compared to any other county government, posing an impact to patients.