Council of Governors (CoG) has called for the immediate resignation of Health Cabinet Secretary Debora Barasa and Permanent Secretary for Medical Services Harry Kimutai.
CoG Whip Stephen Sang has faulted Barasa and Kimutai for wanting to sabotage President William Ruto’s Universal Health Coverage (UHC) agenda, and that is why they were paralyzing the sector.
“I am wondering if the Health CS and PS want to sabotage the president’s agenda on UHC. If you want to sabotage the agenda, then resign from those offices and allow other qualified Kenyans who can be able to deliver the services,’ Sang said.
The CoG Whip argued that the country cannot be experiencing a nationwide strike while in the middle of the transition from the National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) to the Social Health Authority (SHA).
“As the CoG, we will take it to head on with the CS and PS, we cannot allow you to create an additional crisis around the UHC provision when we already have other problems about registration, capitation, and other issues we should be sorting out,” Sang assured.
The CoG demands comes a day after Doctors in Nairobi County officially downed their tools amidst an ongoing strike by clinical officers and contracted health workers under the UHC.
According to KMPDU Chairman, Nairobi branch revealed that doctors could not continue to offer their services over illegal salary stoppages and dismissals, chronic salary delays, stalled promotions, unpaid gratuities for contracted doctors, and delayed confirmation letters for interns.
“The problem is the government is not heeding to its promises; we had an agreement in 2023 that they never met, and now they are telling us to write another matrix where they will affect the promises,” Dr Deogracious Maero, KMPDU Chairman, Nairobi, said.
Apart from the strikes, a section of patients under the Rural & Urban Private Hospitals Association of Kenya (RUPHA) scheme who use SHA are currently not getting health services.
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