Defiant medics face the sack amid crisis

Kisumu County has started hiring nurses on a temporary basis to ease the effects of a strike by 827 caregivers.

The county yesterday asked qualified nurses to report for recruitment. The county set a recruitment team at the Kisumu County Hospital in the city.

This came barely a day after the nurses defied a directive by Governor Anyang’ Nyong’o to resume as their pay dispute was handled by the Council of Governors and National Government.

“In recognition of the inherent rights of both employee and clients and considering critical nature of healthcare service provision and with the existing constitutional advisories from duly appointed government institutions, the obtaining situation in Kisumu must be addressed with the rights of patients in mind. In view of this, the county Department of Health is calling upon any qualified nurse willing to work on temporary basis to report urgently to the Kisumu County Hospital for immediate deployment,” read the release signed by the governor himself.

By the time of going to press, 15 nurses had been recruited to offer services at the Kisumu County Hospital. The 180-bed capacity hospital has over the last three months registered an upturn in patients seeking both outpatient and inpatient services after the main referral hospital closed the outpatient services at its casualty wing.

Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Teaching and Referral Hospital terminated the services following the rollout of the Universal Health Coverage pilot programme, which seeks to reorganise the referral system, leaving the facility for referrals.

The governor said that the fresh recruitment would not replace striking nurses. “We just want to ensure that the UHC pilot programme sails as smoothly as was envisioned by the Government and that benefits of free healthcare to residents are not suddenly terminated." He said recruited nurses “might as well be absorbed on permanent basis since UHC gap analysis had indicated the county needs 800 more health workers.”