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By GIDEON MAUNDU
Operations at Coast General Hospital and other public health facilities in the region were still grounded despite the announcement calling off the strike by the doctors’ union.
At the hospital few nurses who reported to duty were not attending to patients over claims that the declaration to call of the strike had not been communicated to them by the local union officials.
Despite the fact that the government and the health workers union have signed a return-to-work formula, the health sector in Taita-Taveta County is still paralysed.
A survey by The Standard on Sunday revealed that most health workers were still on strike.
“We are yet to receive communication form our union officials to resume duty,” said a Clinical Officer at Wesu District hospital.
At Wundanyi Sub-District Hospital, health workers made technical appearance yesterday and later went back home. “We came to sign some official forms and go back home,” said one of the health workers The Standard on Sunday caught up with at Wundanyi town.
In Voi, Mwatate and Taveta sub-county hospitals, the situation was the same as workers were yet to return to work after a deal was reached between the Ministry of Health and the workers union.
The County Director of Health Services John Logendi said he had dispatched a team of senior health officials to the ground to monitor the situation.
He however said health workers were expected to resume duty yesterday morning after the strike was called off. “We are yet to know whether the workers have resumed duty or not. Our team on the ground will be able to tell us the real situation on the ground,” said Dr Logedi.
Briefing The Standard on Sunday on the health crisis, the director said they had been referring patients especially those in critical condition to St Lukes Kaloleni, Mombasa.
The County Governor John Mruttu said they had written warning letters to the striking workers for failure to return to work.
Since the start of the strike there has been conflicting reports about the number of deaths in Mombasa with some players putting the number at five.
On Friday night the Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentists Union Secretary General, Sultani Matendechero called off the strike after a meeting with Cabinet Secretaries for Devolution Ann Waiguru and her health counterpart James Macharia.
Matendechero, is however reported to have expressed reservations with the return-to-work formula as most of their demands had not been met but insisted “many people have suffered.”
Yesterday, only two tourists volunteered to assist at the Coast General hospital to administ painkillers to patients at the causality wards.
“We’ve seen patients with open wounds in a lot of pain. Others have servere fractures and we came with our medication and we are dressing them up,” said Marjorie Watson, Scottish tourists who is a nurse by profession.
She said that though she sympathiszed with the nurses and doctors it was morally wrong to leave people to suffer and die.
According to Anna Jessen, a Briton they were assisting because “any human being should do everything to make sure fellow human being.”
The two said they have visited Kenyan on several occasion and they are sympathetic with the plight of the patients but added that “nurses and doctors have genuine concern.”
At the emergency award, only one patient was lying on the bed as the few nurses hired by the Mombasa County Government were seated helpless because of the lack of equipment and medication.
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