Three unions representing the health staff – Kenya Union of Clinical Officers, Kenya National Union of Nurses, Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentists Union at Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital (MTRH), have called off their planned strike which was to begin on Tuesday 21 April.
Speaking in Eldoret, as the nurses signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the management of MTRH, the medical staff promised to return the strike after 12 days, if their grievance is not accepted.
MTRH CEO, Dr. Philip Kirwa, noted that the Hospital is waiting for allocation from the Ministry of Finance to save the Health Institution against the paralysis of health services.
He also added that MTRH was depending on the Social Health Authority’s (SHA) allocation, which constitutes to 80 percent of the hospital’s income.
“Most of our revenue collections are from SHA. The cash payers are fairly few, but we still also have corporate clients who go to private wing which constitutes to 20 percent. So when we do get remittances from SHA it significantly helps us to address the challenges that we’ve faced in the recent past,” explained Dr. Kirwa.
Some of their complaints were delays in nurses’ salaries and pensions.
Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital Clinical Officer and Kenya Union of Clinical Officers branch secretary, Wamalwa Siminyu Xavier, warned that the management of the Hospital should remain on high alert, noting they will resume the strike if their appeals are not addressed as agreed.
“Will be monitoring the progress of implementation and the moment we feel that it is not progressing as we expect or as we have agreed, then we will reactivate what we were supposed to do from tomorrow. If at all our demands are not met, our members should be ready,” exclaimed Simiyu.
By Jevvah Kiplimo
