04/11/2012
HERE IS THE REPORT
Addressing a press conference in Nairobi on
Sunday, Maina announced that there is a
shortfall of 50,000 nurses in the country yet those
in employment continue to be overworked.
“We have our members whom the government
recruited through the Economic Stimulus
Programme (ESP), and had even started giving
them some allowances. But the allowance was
later taken away without notice,” Maina
complained.
“The Minister (of Finance) was categorical that
they were going to employ 5000 nurses starting
July this year. We are in November and have not
seen anything,” he said.
They want the government to put in place
mechanisms to absorb all the qualifying nurses to
avert what they termed as a “humanitarian crisis”
in the health sector.
“Why should a qualified nurse wait for five
months before he even gets an attachment in any
government hospital,” he posed.
They demanded implementation of a report from
a taskforce that was formed in March to address
nurses’ grievances—including poor working
conditions in public hospitals.
“We have our colleagues in the private sector
who have survived on contracts for years, with
no good working terms because we do not have
a nurses union. Nurses are very important in this
country, and if anyone doubts this, let nurses get
out of any hospital and we will see how they will
operate,” Maina said.
The association is also concerned that the
government has been deploying community
health workers in some health centers to treat
patients yet they are not qualified.
“The affected area is in the reproductive health.
The community health workers are the ones
doing this in some of the hospitals, yet we are
trained on reproductive health for 6 months after
we clear our three year nursing course. How do
you tell me then that someone will learn this for
two weeks,” they complained.
They have also called on the government to
finalize the Collective Bargaining Agreement as
per the salaries and remuneration commission’s
guidelines.
Other grievances they want addressed include
implementation of various circulars to ensure
succession planning, re-designations and
promotions and appointment of nurses in
various administrative positions with clear job
descriptions.
“We want recruitment of a Director of Nursing to
represent nurses at the Policy levels adding that
poor representation at the top level has also led
to their complains ignored,” they said
