Nairobi Governor Mike Sonko has issued a sack warning to the county nurses who will participate in the planned December 10 strike.The nurses’ union issued a 21-day strike notice Monday citing nonpayment of service and uniform allowances.
Clinical Officers, on the other hand, are protesting against NHIF policies, which they say limit their scope of service provision.
Speaking to journalists on Wednesday Sonko said that the strike call is illegal ‘as the county had complied with the signed CBA’.
“We have a good working relationship with them and I’m not intimidating them, but if they strike, I will sack them. I do not want to go through that route,” he said.
“We have the capacity of hiring private nurses, but with the working relationship we have, I’ sure they will not engage in the strike.”
The outspoken Governor further said that the Nurses will face murder charges if any patient dies in the wake of the strike. Kenya Union of Nurses secretary general Seth Panyako said the strike will be to push for implementation of a return-to-work formula signed in November last year.
In the return-to-work formula signed on November 2, 2017, the national and county governments agreed to increase the nurses’ service allowance by Sh10,000 in three phases.
They were to get an increase of Sh3,000 in the 2018-19 financial year, Sh3,500 in the 2019-20 financial year and Sh3,500 in 2020-21.