Patients still stranded as clinical officers, lab technicians continue with strike

Despite the resumption of doctors to their workstations in public hospitals, health services are yet to normalize in most facilities with clinical officers and medical laboratory officers still on strike.

Patients who sought services at level two and level one facilities on Thursday were still stranded. 

Unions of the two cadres of health workers are now warning of continued industrial action until the Ministry of Health and the Council of Governors pay attention to their grievances.

The medical laboratory officers who have been on strike for more than 30 days are now accusing the government of failing to formulate a recognition agreement with the union despite having met all the requirements.

The lab officers are also demanding that all employees under their union be placed on permanent and pensionable terms of service.

In their strike notice, the lab technologists are also demanding for employment of 1,000 additional lab officers to bridge the shortage in the department.

“Recently there was a report that HIV test results that we are getting are not accurate because the ministry has decided to hire class 8 dropouts to test HIV, these are the people who man VCT centres,” said The Kenya National Union of Medical Laboratory Offices (KNUMLO) Chair Nicholas Odipo.

The union’s Secretary General Pius Nyakundi added: “Come Monday we are going to withdraw all our services from the national blood transfusion, from the national laboratory, from KEMRI because if we can have a strike for one month and the employer is not ready to sit on the table...”

The medical lab officers have accused the county governments of hiring their members for as low as Ksh.15,000, adding that the efforts to address the ministry have not borne any fruit.

Key issues for the clinical officers include medical insurance coverage for their members, implementation of risk allowance, promotion and re-designation of all deserving clinical officers and payment of clinical interns as per the approved internship staff establishment by the Public Service Commission (PSC).

They are calling for the hiring of an additional 20,000 unemployed and qualified clinical officers.

“We are on strike to ensure that we can have equal treatment of the UHC workers who are being mistreated...the counties continue to hold that they must continue on punitive terms which we are not supporting,” Kenya Union of Cilinical Officers (KUCO) Secretary General George Gibore noted.

The clinical officers have been on strike for 39 days with the medical laboratory officers doing their 30th day on strike Thursday.