The health staff unions- Kenya Union of Clinical Officers, Kenya National Union of Nurses, Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentists Union at Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital (MTRH) have called off their planned strike which was to begin this week
Speaking in Eldoret, as the nurses signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the management of MTRH, the medics however threatened to embark on the strike after 12 days, if their grievance not addressed.
MTRH CEO Dr Philip Kirwa explained that the hospital was waiting for allocation from the Ministry of Finance to save the health institution against the paralysis of health services.
He added that MTRH was depending on the Social Health Authority’s (SHA) allocation, which constitutes to 80 percent of the hospital’s income.
“Most of our revenue collections are from SHA. The cash payers are fairly few, but we still have corporate clients who go to private wing which constitutes to 20 percent. So when we do get remittances from SHA, it significantly helps us to address the challenges that we’ve faced in the recent past,” explained Dr. Kirwa. Among their complaints are delays in nurses’ salaries and pensions.
Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital Clinical Officer and Kenya Union of Clinical Officers branch secretary Wamalwa Siminyu Xavier warned the hospital’s management that they will strike if their concerns are not addressed.
“ We will be monitoring the progress of implementation of our demands failure to which we will reactivate our strike notice if we feel that we are being shortchanged,” Simiyu warned
by Jevvah Kiplimo
