Nurses slowly returning to work following 2-week strike

Just a day after the Kenya National Union of Nurses called off their two-week strike, activities in public hospitals are slowly returning to normal with several medics reported to have resumed work.

Nurses in Embu County have kept off from their places of work, despite the strike being called off.

Embu Level Five Medical superintendent Henry Njiru said that the situation at the hospitals was yet to normalize, as nurses had failed to report to work, slowing down activities in the hospital.

“Services are far from being normalized and nurses are yet to come back to work, including in the maternity wards in the hospital,” said Njiru

According to Njiru, most of the medical practitioners in the hospital are insisting that the return to work formula be implemented before they return to work.

“The nurses are streaming in one by one reluctantly, most of them are complaining they are yet to receive the demands expressed in the return to work formula,” expressed Njiru.

Njiru confirms that the state of the hospital has forced the management to use clinical officers to treat patients lining up at the hospitals.

“We are forced to use volunteering clinical officers to help us through this period because some of the patients who come to us are in serious condition,” said Njiru.

A spot check by Citizen Digital, however, established several health facilities remained deserted despite the presence of the nurses

At the Migori County Referral Hospital, medical personnel were on hand to attend to patients, however, there were few patients at the hospital.

At the Eldama Ravine Referral Hospital, patients were still waiting for the nurses as has been the situation for the past week.

This as the doctors’ union representatives remained locked in a closed-door meeting at the Labour Ministry to try and break through the deadlock that has seen the health sector paralysed since December 5, 2016.

Anthony Muchiro, Atieno Mboya and Hassan Mugambi contributed to this story