The country can ill afford yet another strike by medical staff

A nationwide nurses' strike began yesterday in parts of the country following complaints the Government had reneged on a signed return-to-work formula, pending the implementation of a 2013 Comprehensive Bargaining Agreement (CBA). This comes only two months after a debilitating doctors' strike that began on December 5, 2016 and lasted 100 days. The country has hardly recovered from the effects of that long strike and now nurses have downed their tools.

Ideally, this is a resumption of the nurses' strike of close to two weeks that was called off on December 14, 2016 after the Kenya National Union of Nurses (Knun) signed a return-to-work formula with county governments and the Ministry of Health on the understanding that talks on the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) 2013 would begin in January 2017 and be concluded by March 2017.

That did not happen and the nurses are feeling aggrieved. The Knun officials had earlier indicated they would not listen to the Government again should they be forced back to industrial action until the CBA is implemented fully. What this means is that patients should prepare for a long rough ride unless the Government addresses the concerns of nurses. Among these concerns is the harmonisation of nurses' salaries, hiring of additional nurses and promotions.

Just like doctors have claimed before, nurses believe the Council of Governors is up to some mischief, trying hard to obstruct the signing of the CBA which, by prior arrangement, was to have been signed on June 2, 2017. There is urgent need for both tiers of Government to come together, negotiate with the medical fraternity and solve the ills that bedevil this very vital sector. Apparently, these problems became more pronounced after medical services were partially devolved.

A dysfunctional medical services sector  impacts negatively on the economy, especially when workers spend more time ailing because medical services have come to a standstill. More importantly, the Government should go out of its way to prove it is not the bad guy it has been portrayed to be all along.