Clinical Officers issue 7-day strike notice

Clinical Officers have given the government until Sunday midnight to address various grievances failure to which they will proceed on strike.

Speaking on Monday, the Kenya Union of Clinical Officers chairperson Peterson Wachira said the court last directed the employers to resume negotiations with a view of concluding the same.

Wachira said despite the ministry coming to the negotiating table, no reasonable progress has been made.

"I want to tell Kenyans that your government has failed you because today as KUCO, the Ministry of Health and the Council of Governors have forced us to call a strike and to interrupt health services," Wachira said.

Wachira said the union did a petition on March 4 on the same giving 14 days ultimatum but no action was taken by the government.

"Last Monday, March 18 when the 14 days elapsed, we came out and we added another seven days to resolve the things within the petition. Unfortunately, there is nothing that we raised in the petition that has been addressed," he said.

As a result, the National Advisory Council of the union on Sunday decided to call for a strike within seven days should their issues remain unresolved.

According to KUCO SG George Gibore, despite the continuous engagement in negotiations aimed at realizing the past CBA since November 2017, a resolution to that effect remains elusive.

He noted that several return-to-work formulas signed in the past had not been implemented.

They say the most recent agreement signed by the ministry in July 2023 stipulated a 90-day negotiation and conclusion of CBA, a commitment the union says has been disregarded to date.

Similarly,  they said an order issued by the Employment and Labour Relations Court in 2019 ordering parties to resume negotiations to record consent has never been honoured.

In addition to the delayed CBA and recognition agreement, the union wants the perennial issues affecting the provision of healthcare services addressed.

They include delayed salary payment, lack of promotion and redesignation, shortage of clinical officers in hospitals and what they termed as exploitative and discriminatory terms of employment.

They want all terms of clinical officers working on contract including the UHC staff hired on permanent and pensionable terms.

"Despite the commitment made in the Kericho declaration on human resource for health in Kenya signed on October 18, 2023, to address this issue, no tangible progress has been made," Gibore said.

"Failure by the government to fully address these grievances the strike will commence on the eve of Monday as resolved," he noted.

This comes even as Kenyans continued to bear the brunt of doctors' strike which entered its twelfth day on Monday.