The plight of Kenyan healthcare workers needs great attention and the creation of bespoke employment protocols to help secure good health for all. This open letter was written last year has never got the attention it deserves. We need to mobilise the stakeholders to come up with an amicable solution for the suffering community healthcare workers.
OPEN LETTER TO H.E. ANNE MUMBI WAIGURU, GOVERNOR OF KIRINYAGA COUNTY
RE: State of public health and rights of sacked health workers in Kirinyaga County
Madam Governor,
This is to bring to your attention the sorry state of public health in Kirinyaga County. It has been a long two years since you sacked nurses, 188 of whom remain jobless against the directive by the Public Service Commission, which dismissed your move to sack them, and termed it as irregular, unfair, and unlawful—which in actual sense it was and remained to be—and ordered that you reinstate them. To date, you have adamantly disobeyed and maintained your stance to keep the medical workers jobless and to languish in financial crisis.
There would not be any worse time to take illegal action against lawfully striking medical workers than now, when the whole world is plunged in the Covid-19 crisis and when the expertise of health workers is most needed. One would wonder why an elected leader would go to such lengths to instil pain on her people, as, by extension, denying nurses an opportunity to work is denying the people of Kirinyaga their universal human right to access to healthcare.
The issues that the nurses raised remain valid and of great concern to all right-thinking human beings. As a reminder, in case you have forgotten, the nurses were rightfully demanding better working conditions as sanitation in Kerugoya Level 4 Hospital remains largely a sore sight; promotion of deserving nurses; and employment of more staff to address understaffing. After you proved tone-deaf to their distress calls, they resorted to an industrial action granted rightfully in the Constitution of Kenya 2010, Chapter 41, Section 2(d), which clearly states that “Every worker has the right to go on strike.” Given the global health circumstances, the health workers would only resort to such means when everything else has failed, which, truly, did.
Madam Governor, your move to illegally sack the nurses was a gross error in judgment on your part. Whether you have the powers to do so, given the current circumstances, wisdom dictates that you would have found a better way to address the genuine concerns raised by the nurses, taking into consideration the need to continually execute your noble duties in the interest of all the people of Kirinyaga, who elected you and put their trust on you to serve them.
While you have recently promised the completion of the Kerugoya County Referral Hospital medical complex, you remain ironically mum on the crucial and urgent matter of employing more staff to operationalise the complex. Then, what use is a building in an understaffed hospital or no experts to run it? It is clear to many that if you are not doing it for PR purposes, you got your priorities upside down.
If no one has told you, the ground is reeling in anguish. The nurses you sacked have come forth more times than necessary to express their financial distress in light of the financial crisis into which your move thrust them. You disproportionally affected their livelihoods, and by extension, those of their dependents. It is only a genuinely human act that you leave politics out of the health matters and soberly address the elephant in the room. For once, demonstrate public leadership and show the world that you have a soul and disabuse it of the notion that you are inconsiderately heartless.
You cannot run the county without professionals, including health workers. Sadly, we got to a point where we have to keep reminding you of the noble tasks that are demanded of your office. It is time to get your act together.
Madam Governor, being a trustee of the people of Kirinyaga, demands that you put their interests first before anything else, as long as you hold the public office. The truth is that your performance in the last four years hasn’t lived up to its billing. Here is an opportunity to redeem yourself by doing the right thing. In my honest and considered suggestions in regards to healthcare in Kirinyaga County, I hereby submit that you should consider doing the following forthwith:
Reinstate the illegally sacked nurses and pay their total dues. There is no joy in denying health workers their right to dignified work and rightful pay.
Employ enough staff in Kerugoya Hospital. Health, being a devolved function, should be prioritised and funded adequately. Employ more health workers to attend to the healthcare needs of our people in Kirinyaga and address understaffing.
Promote the deserving health workers. It is within your powers, jurisdiction, and call of duty to do so. It is long overdue.
Sanitation in Kerugoya Hospital is a sore sight. You need to be there for a day to witness the unhygienic mess that haunts our people, both the health workers and the patients. There is no joy in working in such an unconducive environment that predisposes one to illnesses. Act accordingly.
Endeavour to forge a working relationship with the health workers for the betterment of healthcare in the county. That is the only sure way to be “on the ground” and understand the challenges our people face on a daily basis.
Equip Kerugoya Hospital with more hospital beds. There is no joy when critically ill patients share a hospital bed. In fact, that only increases their risk of spreading infections.
My humble prayer is that you will make reviving healthcare in Kirinyaga County your foremost concern as your term winds up. Do it for the people of Kirinyaga.
Most respectfully
(Signed)
Comba Wa Ndau, MSc.
Kirinyaga County
9th December 2021.
OPEN LETTER TO H.E. ANNE MUMBI WAIGURU, GOVERNOR OF KIRINYAGA COUNTY
RE: State of public health and rights of sacked health workers in Kirinyaga County
Madam Governor,
This is to bring to your attention the sorry state of public health in Kirinyaga County. It has been a long two years since you sacked nurses, 188 of whom remain jobless against the directive by the Public Service Commission, which dismissed your move to sack them, and termed it as irregular, unfair, and unlawful—which in actual sense it was and remained to be—and ordered that you reinstate them. To date, you have adamantly disobeyed and maintained your stance to keep the medical workers jobless and to languish in financial crisis.
There would not be any worse time to take illegal action against lawfully striking medical workers than now, when the whole world is plunged in the Covid-19 crisis and when the expertise of health workers is most needed. One would wonder why an elected leader would go to such lengths to instil pain on her people, as, by extension, denying nurses an opportunity to work is denying the people of Kirinyaga their universal human right to access to healthcare.
The issues that the nurses raised remain valid and of great concern to all right-thinking human beings. As a reminder, in case you have forgotten, the nurses were rightfully demanding better working conditions as sanitation in Kerugoya Level 4 Hospital remains largely a sore sight; promotion of deserving nurses; and employment of more staff to address understaffing. After you proved tone-deaf to their distress calls, they resorted to an industrial action granted rightfully in the Constitution of Kenya 2010, Chapter 41, Section 2(d), which clearly states that “Every worker has the right to go on strike.” Given the global health circumstances, the health workers would only resort to such means when everything else has failed, which, truly, did.
Madam Governor, your move to illegally sack the nurses was a gross error in judgment on your part. Whether you have the powers to do so, given the current circumstances, wisdom dictates that you would have found a better way to address the genuine concerns raised by the nurses, taking into consideration the need to continually execute your noble duties in the interest of all the people of Kirinyaga, who elected you and put their trust on you to serve them.
While you have recently promised the completion of the Kerugoya County Referral Hospital medical complex, you remain ironically mum on the crucial and urgent matter of employing more staff to operationalise the complex. Then, what use is a building in an understaffed hospital or no experts to run it? It is clear to many that if you are not doing it for PR purposes, you got your priorities upside down.
If no one has told you, the ground is reeling in anguish. The nurses you sacked have come forth more times than necessary to express their financial distress in light of the financial crisis into which your move thrust them. You disproportionally affected their livelihoods, and by extension, those of their dependents. It is only a genuinely human act that you leave politics out of the health matters and soberly address the elephant in the room. For once, demonstrate public leadership and show the world that you have a soul and disabuse it of the notion that you are inconsiderately heartless.
You cannot run the county without professionals, including health workers. Sadly, we got to a point where we have to keep reminding you of the noble tasks that are demanded of your office. It is time to get your act together.
Madam Governor, being a trustee of the people of Kirinyaga, demands that you put their interests first before anything else, as long as you hold the public office. The truth is that your performance in the last four years hasn’t lived up to its billing. Here is an opportunity to redeem yourself by doing the right thing. In my honest and considered suggestions in regards to healthcare in Kirinyaga County, I hereby submit that you should consider doing the following forthwith:
Reinstate the illegally sacked nurses and pay their total dues. There is no joy in denying health workers their right to dignified work and rightful pay.
Employ enough staff in Kerugoya Hospital. Health, being a devolved function, should be prioritised and funded adequately. Employ more health workers to attend to the healthcare needs of our people in Kirinyaga and address understaffing.
Promote the deserving health workers. It is within your powers, jurisdiction, and call of duty to do so. It is long overdue.
Sanitation in Kerugoya Hospital is a sore sight. You need to be there for a day to witness the unhygienic mess that haunts our people, both the health workers and the patients. There is no joy in working in such an unconducive environment that predisposes one to illnesses. Act accordingly.
Endeavour to forge a working relationship with the health workers for the betterment of healthcare in the county. That is the only sure way to be “on the ground” and understand the challenges our people face on a daily basis.
Equip Kerugoya Hospital with more hospital beds. There is no joy when critically ill patients share a hospital bed. In fact, that only increases their risk of spreading infections.
My humble prayer is that you will make reviving healthcare in Kirinyaga County your foremost concern as your term winds up. Do it for the people of Kirinyaga.
Most respectfully
(Signed)
Comba Wa Ndau, MSc.
Kirinyaga County
9th December 2021.
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