• The health workers began their strike on Monday morning, accusing the management and other stakeholder of failure to implement a negotiated salary review.
• The government has already released Sh601 million to KNH but the Salaries Renumeration Commission has to give the okay before workers are paid.
Christopher Muvya rushed his friend Evans to Kenyatta National Hospital at about 8am on Monday, hoping to save his life.
Evans, a 27-year-old a rider was vomiting blood. It was only at the hospital that his problem could be established.
That was not to be - they waited for hours with nobody attending to them.
Evans died outside the KNH, awaiting treatment. The healthcare workers were on strike, from Mondday morning.
“One of the doctors saw us removing a bed from inside and asked us what the bed was for. He then told us that they were on strike,” Muvya said.
“I got outside and saw some guy wearing a white coat. I realised he was a doctor. I talked to him. I pleaded with him to help us. He carried out some tests on my friend only to tell us he could have helped but it is too late,” he said.
Evans' body was taken to the City Mortuary.
Subsequent tests were conducted outside the hospital as they were denied entry.
KNH workers downed their tools over what they termed failure by the management and other stakeholders to implement an agreed salaries review.
"We will not accept the SRC to take us round and round," one worker said amid the chorus of the song, "When the devil comes, we will be ready".
The employer will part with Sh2.4 billion annually if the management accedes to their demands. And the monthly salaries of some of them will be doubled.
For instance, those in job group K1 earning a monthly salary of Sh191,000 will be drawing Sh318,566. Those in job group K3 earning Sh141,000 will be getting Sh211,793.
Lowly paid non-medical workers in job group K13, who earn Sh23,810 will be taking home Sh27,509.
The workers are members of the Kenya Medical Practitioners Pharmacists and Dentists Union, the Kenya National Union of Nurses and the Kenya Union of Domestic, Hotels, Education Institutions, Hospitals and Allied Workers.
In 2018, nurses union KNH branch chairman Linus Khasenye said at a meeting with the management that there was an agreement that the salaries review was to be in phases.
The workers and the management have had a long-running dispute since 2012, when the State Corporation Advisory Committee recategorised all parastatals, including referral hospitals from level 3B to PC 7A.
The unions say the recategorisation should have come with a salary increment for all the 7,000 workers, a discordant view from that of the KNH management and the Salaries and Remuneration Commission.
“This was done in 2012 and when it was done, unfortunately, it was kept as a secret from the workers and the union came to know about it in 2016. That is why we have been making a follow-up on the case,” Khasenye said.
“In 2019, we realised that what we agreed on in 2018 was not being implemented. Actually the first phase was implemented last year then the second phase was supposed to be implemented this year from July 1.”
In 2019, the hospital’s board of management sought funds from the Treasury to implement the new pay. The Treasury set aside Sh2.4 billion. It handed over Sh601 million to KNH early this year.
"The government has already released Sh601 million to that effect, and the money transferred to the KNH accounts. It is now up to the SRC to write a no objection order to the management to allow the new salary scale to be effected," the official noted.
“If they don’t address our matter, we will remain here. We shall stand put until our matter is addressed because it is not a complex matter,” he added.
The KNH management, however, insists that only the SRC can unlock the stalemate.
KNUN secretary general Seth Panyako said they resorted to strike because the SRC had decided to behave "like it is the only institutional body in the country".
"The money we are talking about has been approved and there is no going back. We want the SRC to give a letter advising KNH on payment. Thereafter, the strike will be called off," he said.
According to him, the problem is that the SRC does not want Kenyatta Hospital to implement the salary review.
"We will not have any engagements until we receive a letter from the SRC," he maintained.
Edited by EKibii