Health Principal Secretary Harry Kimtai has confirmed that 1,270 Clinical officer Interns have been posted in various medical facilities nationwide.

Speaking on Thursday, he said that Diploma holders’ interns who received their offer letter of internship placement would report to work for their one-year training program on April 1.

The Diploma holders Clinical Interns will be paid a Kes 35,000 monthly stipend, an increase from the current Kes 15,000.

This comes a few days after the medical practitioners  went on strike, blaming the government for failure to post interns.

According to PS Kimtai, the internship program covers 3,752 interns across various cadres, including 849 Medical interns, 290 Pharmacists, 73 Dental officers, 1,125 degree-holder Nursing officers, 145 Degree holders, and the 1,270 diploma-holder Clinical officers posted on Thursday.

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“There were delays that were beyond our control as a ministry however we appreciate the National treasury because when we submitted concerns that the challenges will delay your program they gave us approval and we deliberated to offer the placement letters,” he said.

Further, he said that the placement will be done in various phases for ease of posting of the interns, sending stern warnings to those on strike to resume work.

“One of the contentious issues was posting of the interns due to the challenges that the ministry of health was facing in regards to budget deficit and now that you have been given approval we expect that those who have been using the issue of posting of the interns to strike to call off the strike. As a ministry we have started posting the interns,” said Kimtai.

On his part, Kenya Union of Clinical Officers (KUCO) George Gibore called on the government to scale up the number of the interns posted at health facilities so that they can also be deployed to serve in various countries.

“As a union we urge the government to increase the number of the interns being absorbed.If they are not taken care of they will end up becoming worse than the patients they are supposed to take care of at the health centres,” he said.