BY MANUEL ODENY
Migori residents are starring at health crisis as over 1,500 medics across all departments are set to join industrial action of strike on Monday midnight.
Speaking to the press at Migori Referral Hospital on Saturday, officials from five unions jointly said they will paralyse all operations in county public hospitals until their demands are met.
On November 25 the unions wrote to the county government through county secretary Oscar Olima giving their 14 days strike notice which will elapse on Monday midnight.
The Kenya Union of Clinical Officers (KUCO), Kenya National Union of Nurses (KNU), Kenya National Union of Medical Laboratory Officers (KNUMLO), The Kenya National Union of Pharmaceutical Technologist and Kenya Environmental Health and Public Health Practitioners Union wrote the later.
They demanded promotion and re-designations, addressing of staff shortage by the county board and the third one is to offer comprehensive insurance cover.
“We have given Migori an olive branch for long and despite our efforts we have been ignored, we are frustrated and betrayed by this administration and the best will be to go on strike,” Mourine Maramba, representing clinical officers said.
She said the only attempt at dialogue by county was when Olima sent an officer to address their plight, but said “the person brought could not address our plight or was in any capacity to offer a solution.”
“We are firmly in this strike and the first institution to be paralyse will be the referral hospital hospitals before we move to all rural dispensaries,” Harison Wendo, who represents nurses said.
Samuel Akuku who represents public health officers said the health department has been suffering major staff shortage in rural dispensaries in the public sector.
“We need a public health officer in at least a sub-county, but now we are so understaffed,” Akuku said.
Christopher Ondeyo representing laboratory workers said the acute shortage as seen some fully equipped labs across the county, including others recently opened in hospitals and dispensaries by governor Ochillo Ayacko being closed.
“We have very few staff which has seen us being demoralised,” Ondeyo said.
The union leaders said the department had last promotions from 2018 with most workers stuck in the same job group with complains that a supplementary budget that was to tackle the matter was slashed.
“We need to have doctors promoted on time,” Ondeyo said.
Austin Oduor, a clinical officers’ national union leader said Migori is among very few counties that have failed to give health care workers comprehensive health care cover seeing medics not being able to be treated in the same institutions they work in.
“Lab techs have been forced to live with poor eye sights from staring at microscopes because their medical cover cant affords specs, some of our medics have to go in their own pockets and open whatsapp groups to buy medicines,” Oduor said.
