President William Ruto has directed county governments to absorb all Universal Health Care (UHC) workers on permanent and pensionable terms.
Speaking on Friday in Mombasa during the unveiling of the new Social Health Authority (SHA) cover targeting 2.2 million vulnerable Kenyans, the President assured that the National Government will shoulder the costs of absorption to ensure counties comply.
“For us to be able to deliver on this very important constitutional imperative, we must have men and women qualified and working in the health sector,” Ruto said.
The directive comes two weeks after he urged counties to fast-track the conversion of UHC staff contracts, stressing that the health workers are “doing the heavy lifting” to guarantee the success of the scheme.
“We want to remove these workers from contract basis to permanent and pensionable positions. I want to ask county governments to consider making them pensionable starting October because we have the resources to do it,” he added.
The fate of UHC workers has long been at the centre of a dispute between the Ministry of Health and county governments. Since the launch of the UHC pilot in 2018, thousands of health workers have been employed on short-term contracts, sparking frequent strikes and work stoppages.
County officials have maintained that the responsibility of hiring lies with the National Government, since the programme was initiated from Nairobi.
However, the Ministry of Health has insisted that health is a devolved function, and therefore the duty of counties to absorb the workers.