5,500 health workers report to work next week

The 5,500 health workers being hired to fight Covid-19 will report to work by Thursday next week, Council of Governors chairman Wycliffe Oparanya said Wednesday. 

But it is unlikely that the deadline will be met as most counties have opened applications for the 10 categories until mid next week.

Oparanya, who is the Kakamega governor, said the workers will be given three-year contracts. 

Diploma holders will earn Sh50,000 a month and certificate holders Sh40,000.

"Each county has identified gaps and made requests according to the number they require," Oparanya told journalists at the CoG headquarters in Nairobi yesterday. 

"Some are getting more nurses while others are getting more clinical officers." 

He said the salaries will be paid through a conditional grant from the national government.

"We had hired 3,000 workers to support the universal health coverage and now we have 5,500, making it 8,500," he said. 

The positions are for nurses, clinical officers, pharmaceutical technologists, laboratory technologists, community oral health officers, radiographers, community health education workers, assistant public health officers and assistant health records and information officers. 

Oparanya, who said he was alone because other governors were barred from Nairobi, appealed to the Kenya Pipeline Company to fulfill its promise to donate 20,000 litres of hand sanitiser every week. 

KPC managing director Macharia Irungu last Tuesday promised that the company will donate 20,000 litres of hand sanitiser weekly to all 47 counties with the targets being households, small-scale business people supplying essential food items and health facility staff.

“The distribution is to all the 47 county governments. However, more consideration will be given to counties that have confirmed cases and the 14 high risk counties,” the CoG said at the time. 

Oparanya said KPC had failed to fulfill its promise and no county had received any sanitiser. 

"We've been following up with KPC. They have always promised they will send but yesterday I asked and no county had received anything," he said.

"At this time you cannot promise just for the sake of it." 

Oparanya was updating the media on preparedness by counties to deal with Covid-19.

He assured that hospitals are still seeing patients for other diseases despite the focus on coronavirus. 

"The comprehensive care clinics for other diseases like diabetes, cancer and HIV are open and patients are being attended to," he said. 

Edited by Henry Makori