Healthcare workers in Homa Bay have issued a seven-day strike notice should the County Government fail to solve issues that affect them.
Speaking on Saturday, the healthcare workers decried that nothing has been done despite tabling their grievances to their employer.
Some of the grievances include salary delays, non-confirmation of employment, withdrawal of some members from the payroll without notice, and stagnation, among other pertinent issues.
The healthcare workers and union officials are drawn from the Kenya National Union of Nurses (KNUN), Kenya Union of Clinical Officers (KUCO), Kenya Union of Nutritionists and Dieticians (KUND), Kenya National Union for Medical Laboratory Officers (KNULO), Union of Health Records and Kenya Medical Practitioners Pharmacists and Dentists Union (KMPDU) representing doctors.
The unionists said that some healthcare workers were withdrawn from the payroll last year in August without prior notice and have yet to be reinstated back into the system.
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Led by KNUN branch Secretary Emerdick Otieno, they also pointed out that some of them have stagnated in one job group for almost ten years.
“The county government deemed it fit to remove them from the payroll and notify them one month after. In fact, the notice stopping their salaries came in August which is against labor laws,” he said.
Further, he said that the county should further clear the arrears for the months the employees went without their salaries.
He also lamented stagnation in one job group, which he claimed demoralized them in dispensing their duties.
Otieno urged the County Government to promote healthcare workers who have stagnated in one job group for over three years following Human Resource guidelines.
“We want to tell the county government that promotion is a motivational factor and hence we want our members to be promoted as they deserve,” said Otieno.
On his part, KMPDU County Liaison Officer Dr Ochieng Otana expressed the union’s dissatisfaction with how Human Resource issues are handled within the health department, citing chronic salary delays.
“Some members were employed by the county for some time now but have not been confirmed yet. They have not been issued with letters of confirmation which means there are some benefits that they are missing out on,” he said.
Otana said the issues raised affected their morale and service delivery and called for a satisfactory resolution as soon as possible.
