Health workers threaten to strike from Monday

Health workers will down their tools beginning Monday if the government will not have intervened by Sunday.

The Kenya Health Workers Union Society said their welfare has been neglected adding that they are overexposed and not protected from Covid-19.

"At this time that the leadership are not ready to address the grievance of foot soldiers ..we have been here severally..it's not that we have no business to attend to," the union said on Thursday.

Kenya National Clinical Union Chairman Peterson Wachira said their push to get involved in the fight against the virus has fallen on deaf ears.

"This pandemic is an emergency but if you are not treating health workers as the forefront soldiers and you are treating them as normal people then it is a sad day, " he said.

FORCED TO REUSE: Nurses wear protective gear during a demonstration of preparations for coronavirus cases at the Mbagathi Hospital isolation centre.
Image: REUTERS

The medics want the Ministry of Health to recognise the weight of the health crisis at hand and help medics in fighting the disease.

"You have seen that some medics have been infected in the line of duty ..for you to protect Kenyans you must protect the medics," one of the health workers said.

"As the health care workers union, the strike we called is going to begin on Monday so that we can have some time and focus on things to be done."

This comes hours after Mombasa governor Hassan Joho said that two clinicians turned positive in Mombasa on Tuesday.

Speaking to BBC on Wednesday, Joho said this was occasioned by lack of enough PPEs.

"We have seen cases where two clinicians turned positive but now we have enough PPEs that will last us for the next 15 days," he said.