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Kenya Union of Clinical Officers Chairman Peterson Wachira addresses the Press after medics downed tools yesterday. [File, Jonah Onyango, Standard]
Kenya Union of Clinical Officers (KUCO) General Secretary George Gibore has told his colleagues that the strike is still ongoing and that they should not be cowed by threats of disciplinary action from the Council of Governors (COG).
Since the start of the year, COG has remained adamant about signing a return-to-work formula that would be the final elixir to the health crisis and send clinical officers back to work.
On Wednesday, COG chair Wycliffe Oparanya ordered the nurses to go back to work, saying that their strike was declared illegal in court. Oparanya has also defended the Council s stand on not signing the return-to-work formula on their absence in the agreement process between the Union and Health Ministry.
On January 5, Kuco gave CoG 48 hours to consent to the return-to-work formula signed by the union and the Ministry of Health on January 1.
The union also wrote to the CoG on January 6 requesting for an urgent meeting with Oparanya with a view to resolve the impasse, but they are yet to get a response.
“This is a clear demonstration on the lack of goodwill and commitment from the devolved governments through their council to resolve this stalemate so as to restore normalcy and sanity in the health service provision more so during the Covid-19 pandemic,” said Gibore.
Among the issues the governors are contesting include the doctors’ risk allowance, which Kuco said require a minimum increment of between 500 per cent and 650 per cent for low cadres.
Kenya Union of Clinical Officers Chairman Peterson Wachira addresses the Press after medics downed tools yesterday. [Jonah Onyango, Standard]
Healthcare workers have stood their ground seven days into a strike that is slowly crippling the public healthcare system amid criticism from various leaders.
Meeting on Monday at Uhuru Park, healthcare workers under the leadership of Kenya Union of Clinical Officers (KUCO), have continued to criticise the government for having misplaced priorities and neglecting frontline workers amid a pandemic that has threatened lives and the economy of the country. Patriotism is not suicide and we are not ready to commit suicide in a country that does not want to appreciate its own healthcare workers, valiantly said KUCO chairperson Peterson Wachira.