Health professional associations have raised alarm over the impact of the ongoing nurses’ strike, warning that the 37-day industrial action is putting patients at risk amid fears of fatalities.
National Nurses Association of Kenya (NNAK) National Chairman Collins Otieno Ajwang noted that the prolonged strike had severely affected public health facilities, with reported maternal, neonatal and perinatal deaths continuing to be recorded.
Speaking during a joint press briefing in Nairobi on Thursday, Ajwang highlighted that eight maternal deaths, 16 neonatal deaths and 55 perinatal deaths had been recorded nationally between Monday and Wednesday this week.
He also pointed out that the previous week recorded 22 maternal deaths, 44 neonatal deaths and 130 perinatal deaths, while 75 maternal deaths and 458 perinatal deaths were recorded in August.
“These are not signs that the crisis is easing,” Ajwang said, adding that professional bodies were working to obtain updated data on women delivering outside health facilities.
Further, the Chairman reported that nurses constitute nearly 70 percent of Kenya’s healthcare workforce and are central to service delivery across all the 47 counties.
To this regard, Ajwang cautioned that the continued absence of nurses from public health facilities had transformed the dispute from a labour matter into a public health and patient safety concern.
“We are now counting deaths. The strike will be over, but the deaths have happened,” he lamented.
He therefore called on the national and county governments, unions, the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) and other stakeholders to return to the negotiating table and resolve the outstanding issues.
Concurrently, Kenya Progressive Nurses Association (KPNA) National Chairman Michael Nyongesa added that patients requiring specialised services had also been affected by the strike.
He cited dialysis patients among those at risk when they fail to receive regular treatment, saying the absence of nurses from health facilities had compromised access to essential and specialised care.
In addition, Nyongesa echoed that the full extent of deaths occurring outside health facilities remained unknown because such cases were difficult to capture.
On her part, Kenya Pediatric Association President Dr. Supa Tunje reiterated that the disruption was also affecting patients requiring inpatient and specialised care.
She noted that most public health facilities were not admitting patients requiring hospitalization, leaving higher-level facilities to handle cases that would ordinarily be managed elsewhere.
“Most of the healthcare facilities in the public are not taking in admissions,” Dr. Tunje emphasised, adding that patients requiring advanced or specialised services were consequently unable to access the care they needed.
Equally, she warned that Level Six facilities might not have the capacity to absorb the growing number of patients seeking specialised care.
Dr. Tunje also reaffirmed that professional bodies were collecting additional data through the health information system to establish the wider impact of the strike.
Meanwhile, the three leaders also raised concern over the effect of the strike on the training of medical and nursing students who depend on public health facilities for mandatory clinical placements.
Ajwang revealed that universities and colleges were experiencing delays because students could not complete the clinical rotations required for graduation.
Consequently, he mentioned that the disruption had created a backlog of students awaiting completion of their clinical placements.
In a quick rejoinder, Dr. Tunje stressed that the disruption was affecting the wider health system and not only patients currently seeking treatment.
Therefore, the leaders called for urgent intervention by the Government, unions, SRC and other stakeholders to end the impasse and restore normal services.
Meanwhile, Ajwang assured that nurses were ready to return to the bedside once the outstanding issues were resolved, allowing Kenyans to regain access to essential healthcare services.
The strike was called by the Kenya National Union of Nurses and Midwives (KNUN) and entered its 37th day on Thursday 3rd, 2026.
By Sharon Njeru/Wasidia Nakhendo
