Kenyan government fired 25,000 health workers for not abiding the official order and putting the life of serious patients at stake. The government said in its official notification that “the sacked staff will be replaced by unemployed professionals and hospital nurses”.
The spokesman of the government Alfred Mutua said that “those professionals who defied the directives had been permanently deleted from the payroll and all unemployed nurses and professionals have been directed to submit their resumes for the fresh appointments”.
It is said that the sacked employees had staged demonstration against the government and promised that they would not return to work unless their grievances pertaining to allowances were not addressed. On the other hand, a private news agency reported that a mother and her newborn baby had died due to not availability of initial treatment in the maternity hospital and there were many other patients who were facing the same life risks owing to paucity of health staff.
Besides, a member of the Kenya Health Professionals Society Frederick Omiah said that “the new decision of government is going to spark more violence in Nairobi and many other parts of the country and this was very bad decision”. He further said that life of the patients is at stake and appointment of new professionals will take time to complete the selection process. Hence, it would be better if the government reinstate the sacked workers.
Contrary to this, the spokesman of the government Mutua said that “we do not have shortage of professionals and there are about 100,000 to 200,000 workers ready to work on the vacant jobs, hence we would like to continue with the recruitment process to save the lives of people as soon as possible”.
