Nurses in Embu have vowed to continue with their strike after a meeting to resolve stalemate collapsed on Friday last week.
While issuing a press statement in Embu today the nurses blamed the health officials for lack of good will to address their grievances.
Led by Joseph Ngwasi, Secretary to Kenya National Union of Nurses (KNUN), Embu Branch the nurses vowed not to return to work until their demands they presented to the county government were fully met.
Ngwasi said the meeting had proceeded well and they had agreed on all their demands until the health executives demanded for more days to consider the agreement before signing the return to work formula.
Ngwasi, who is also the KNUN national chairman, said the executive told the nurses to continue with their strike until they organize a meeting to resolve the stalemate.
The KNUN official however said there is a foul play and lack of goodwill citing that the health executives are planning to sack contracted healthcare workers and engage a company belonging to one of them to employ their relatives and cronies; which they vowed they will not allow to happen.
Ngwasi also said despite all the nurses being on strike, testing of covid 19 is still going on wondering who is doing the testing and ferrying of the samples to Nairobi adding that they suspect the county government have engaged fake nurses to carry out testing.
The healthcare workers have urged the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) to conduct an investigation into alleged rampant corruption in the department of health and finance.
They lamented that despite the nurses being deducted statutory deductions the money is never remitted to the relevant bodies; wondering whereabouts their money adding that many of their colleagues are held in various hospitals in Embu and Nairobi for being unable to use their NHIF cards.
However the nurses said they are ready to return to work once their demands are met which include remission of their Ksh 400 Million statutory reductions to the relevant bodies.
They are also demanding harmonization of salaries for contracted healthcare workers which ranges between Ksh 15, 000 and Ksh 50, 000 despite the healthcare workers doing the same job.
