Various stakeholders on Wednesday met to discuss key issues affecting the health sector.
Key on the agenda was the extension of contracts for healthcare workers engaged under the Universal Health Coverage programme.
Health unions have been up in arms to oppose the plan by the government to extend the employment of UHC staff on a contract basis for another three years.
They have threatened to down their tools should the demand to convert the terms of the more than 8,550 staff to permanent and pensionable terms remain unmet.
The unions have termed the move as discriminatory, illegal and irregular.
“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,” Kenya Union of Clinical Officers SG George Gibore said.
The meeting which was chaired by the Health CS Susan Wafula was attended by the Salaries and Remuneration Commission chairperson Lyn Mengich, the council of Governors Health Committee chair Muthomi Njuki and his labour counterpart Johnson Sakaja.
Also present were representatives from the Public Service Commission, the Ministry of Labour and the Ministry of Public Service.
Also discussed were issues of the placement of interns and the implementation of the Collective Bargaining Agreements.
KUCO has further demanded that the ministry should ensure that 1,848 interns are posted with immediate effect.
The interns were due to be posted in December 2022 but the union says despite there being a budget for the same, their fate remains unclear.
“We have no communication as to when they are supposed to be posted yet we have seen that others have been posted. This discrimination must end, whatever is good for one must also be given to the other one,” KUCO chairman Peterson Wachira noted.
On Tuesday, the Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentists Union expressed concern that the government is yet to honour the 2017-2021 CBA, two months after they called off their strike to allow for dialogue.
According to KMPDU secretary general Dr Davji Atellah, the efforts to get a report on the progress of the implementation from the Ministry of Health and the Council of Governors have not yielded fruits.
The ministry and the stakeholders have however reiterated their commitment to improving the welfare of healthcare workers and the healthcare sector in general.
