Union of Kenya Kenya Civil servants Kirinyaga County branch, has given Governor Anne Waiguru three weeks to restore sanity at Kerugoya Level Four hospital failing which they will ask their members to withdraw from the facility.
Paul Kariuki Ndungu, the branch chairman, said they have received complaints over the intimidation of workers by the county government.
Kariuki said the deployment of staff from other departments to the hospital was carried out haphazardly without following the laid down regulations.
“There is no way electricians and plumbers can be deployed to clean the hospital without requisite training as required by the law,’’ he said
He said they have instructed their members who are wrongly placed to work in the hospital to withdraw with immediate effect.
Kariuki said the members stand to lose in the event of anything happening to them while working outside their designated workstations.
He said under such circumstances, the workman cannot be compensated in the event such a member either got infected or is injured while offering the service.
“This is why we are giving the county government three weeks to sort out their problem failure to which we are going to advise our members to stay away from the facility.”
The union also accused the county government of trampling on the workers’ rights in that they have not been implementing their promotions as specified in the scheme of service.
Kariuki said the workload has increased by the day with the county government refusal to employ workers to replace those who leave the service by natural attrition.
“This is why the hospital was largely affected by the removal of the three hundred casual workers who the county sacked claiming they were addressing the issue of the wage bill.”
Yesterday Dr Gor Goody, the branch secretary Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union (KMPDU) Central branch said they were also contemplating advising the medical officers to stay away from the hospital if the situation is not improved.
Dr Goody said infection control was impossible in the current status of the hospital and poses a risk to their members since health service delivery has broken down
She said the county government has completely run down the health sector with zero allocation to human resource management, training and employee support services.
There is no allocation for curative health services making the operations at the facility almost impossible.
The laboratory which is a key unit in the delivery of health services has also broken down.
Dr. Goody said the lab is not functional hence doctors are forced to send patients to private laboratories for tests.
She said Kirinyaga County has a big shortage of doctors with the current number of 30 medical officers distributed across the county.
“Kerugoya hospital alone being a level 4 facility is supposed to have the 30 medical officers we are talking about, you can tell me the kind of workload these doctors have to bear with” she said
By Irungu Mwangi
