The Ministry of Health has defended the move to extend the contracts of UHC staff for a period of another three years instead of hiring them on permanent and pensionable terms.
Head of Preventive and Promotive Health at the ministry Andrew Mulwa on Monday said the government at the moment does not have the resources required to employ them on a permanent and pensionable.
Mulwa said the decision to hire them on the contract was arrived at with the hope that the economy would have grown to absorb them by the time they come to an end three years later.
“The reality is the market does not have space for them. Which is a lesser evil, for them to go home with no contracts or to extend the contracts for three years hoping that within the three years, we would be able to grow the economy and be able to absorb them?” Mulwa paused during a panel discussion on NTV.
Last week, healthcare unions rejected the resolution by the government to extent the contracts of UHC staff for another three years.
The unions have instead insisted that the more than 8,550 staff be hired on permanent and pensionable terms and termed the move as discriminatory.
But the health unions last week came out guns blazing terming the contractual terms as illegal and irregular and threatening to paralyse health services unless they are made permanent and pensionable.
They comprise the Kenya Union of Clinical Officers, Kenya National Union of Nurses and the Kenya Medical Practitioners Pharmacists and Dentists.
Others include the Kenya National Union Medical Laboratory officers, the Kenya National Union of Pharmaceutical Technologists and officers and the Kenya Union of Nutritionists and Dietitians.
“Subjecting them to contractual undertakings will not only be killing their professional growth but will also be disadvantaging them in terms of cadre competitions with their counterparts already in the service,” KUCO SG George Gibore said.
They have instead called on the government to embrace and implement the principle of equality and the prohibition against discrimination of workers as enshrined in the constitution.
