Tharaka Nithi nurses strike point to failed health devolution

Tharaka Nithi nurses strike point to failed health devolution

BY MUSYOKA NGUI

T

hat health workers have stayed put and vowed to continue with their strike at the expense of patients points to a failed take off of transfer of the health function from the national government to the county governments.

The nurses refused to return to work after their May salaries were paid in full. They raised other issues like calling on the governor Samuel Ragwa to sack the Health executive Magdalene Njeru who accused the nurses of stealing medicine from the hospitals in Chuka General Hospital.

The nurses are obliged by their professional code of conduct to prioritize the plight of the patients at all times. The Hippocratic Oath holds and any professional doctor should be compassionate to the plight of the patients, majority of whom are poor to seek medical attention to private health facilities.

Graft Claims

As a result, the patients from Tharaka Nithi County have transferred to Meru and Embu teaching and referral hospitals. The claims of health workers stealing public medicine from public hospitals should be investigated and culpable nurses be prosecuted. It is alleged that the nurses have opened private clinics in town where they stuff the siphoned drugs which they recommend to their patients who are told that the drugs have ran out of supply. Medical dishonesty is a serious crime at a time when negligence among the medical fraternity have hit the local headlines.

Rightly, governor Ragwa maintains that the nurses must return to work since their dues have been paid. Any continued standoff will only lead to more needless suffering and at worse loss of lives.

IFMIS

There is also an urgent need for the national government to streamline the Integrated Financial Management Information System (IFMIS) which is blamed for the delays in paying publics` servants including nurses and other professionals. It will also help for the county governments to partner with banks to ensure that nurses get their salary within the shortest time. Above all, patience and dialogue should prevail for the nurses who are educated enough to know the consequences of their strike on the ordinary citizens.

Mr. Ragwa has welcomed consultations with the nurses in a move expected to stem suffering among the patients. No amount of grandstanding will help the nurses. They should eat a humble pie and know that regardless of their duties they owe service delivery to Kenyans and must serve them selflessly and steer clear of politics and sideshows.