Patients sit waiting on chairs in the open waiting area of a Kenyan health facility. File photo. Photo: Njoki Ngari/Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
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Opinion: the nurses’ deal buys 45 days. Use them.
Opinion & Voices. The views here are the writer's own.
The nurses are back at work, and that is good news for everyone who depends on a public hospital. For six weeks, wards ran short, patients were turned away or waited longer, and doctors warned they could not keep covering the gap.
But look closely at what was signed on Wednesday. Risk allowance goes up to Sh8,000. Uniform allowance rises by Sh5,000. Nurses on Universal Health Coverage contracts are promised permanent jobs. Those are real gains. What the deal does not do is settle the thing the strike was about: a collective bargaining agreement from 2017 that, nine years on, has still not been fully put in place.
A deadline, not a finish line
The deal gives 45 days for the next steps, including career guidelines for nurses. That is where this will be won or lost. Kenya has been here before. Agreements get signed to end a strike, the pressure fades, and the promises drift until the next walkout.
So here is a simple test. Before the 45 days run out, the Council of Governors, the national government and the union should tell the public, in writing, what has been done, what has not, and who is paying for it. If money is the problem, say how much and when it will come. Parliament's health committees should ask for that report and publish it.
Patients are part of this deal too
Union secretary general Seth Panyako said on Wednesday that disputes should be resolved without strikes. We agree. That only works if the other side keeps its word on time. The people who pay for broken promises are not the negotiators. They are the mothers, children and elderly patients in public wards across the country.
Mark the date. If day 45 comes and goes with nothing to show, nobody should be surprised by what happens next.
Sources: Citizen Digital, AP via ABC News
That was a Kibra News Network report, read by an A I voice.
Opinion & Voices. The views here are the writer’s own.
The nurses are back at work, and that is good news for everyone who depends on a public hospital. For six weeks, wards ran short, patients were turned away or waited longer, and doctors warned they could not keep covering the gap.
But look closely at what was signed on Wednesday. Risk allowance goes up to Sh8,000. Uniform allowance rises by Sh5,000. Nurses on Universal Health Coverage contracts are promised permanent jobs. Those are real gains. What the deal does not do is settle the thing the strike was about: a collective bargaining agreement from 2017 that, nine years on, has still not been fully put in place.
A deadline, not a finish line
The deal gives 45 days for the next steps, including career guidelines for nurses. That is where this will be won or lost. Kenya has been here before. Agreements get signed to end a strike, the pressure fades, and the promises drift until the next walkout.
So here is a simple test. Before the 45 days run out, the Council of Governors, the national government and the union should tell the public, in writing, what has been done, what has not, and who is paying for it. If money is the problem, say how much and when it will come. Parliament’s health committees should ask for that report and publish it.
Patients are part of this deal too
Union secretary general Seth Panyako said on Wednesday that disputes should be resolved without strikes. We agree. That only works if the other side keeps its word on time. The people who pay for broken promises are not the negotiators. They are the mothers, children and elderly patients in public wards across the country.
Mark the date. If day 45 comes and goes with nothing to show, nobody should be surprised by what happens next.
KNN Newsroom is the staff byline for stories written, rewritten and edited at the Kibra News Network desk. Where a story credits an outside outlet, the original source is linked at the foot of the piece.
