By Okong’o Oduya
All health workers in public Health facilities in Busia County have today lowered down their tools demanding county government to address to their promotion grievances.
A state of hopelessness and desperation can be seen among patients and families with sick people trying to look for alternatives for treatment.
According to them the county government is dragging itself in addressing their demands as agreed in previous meetings.
Talking to press early today the leaders of health workers union led by their chairman Dr. Wilberforce Lusumba, said they are not going back to work until their grievances are heard.
They demand the county leadership to fully execute the agreement arrived at in previous meetings. They claim that the county government has been dragging itself in implementing what they agreed upon.
According to Dr. Lusamba the agreement was t, by 1st April 2016 every health worker who deserved promotion should be promoted. He noted that so far just a number of their members have been promoted, the rest are still waiting for their promotion letters. He claimed that out of 600 nurses and doctors who should be promoted only 257 have received their promotion letters while the rest are yet to receive.
However Lusamba added that, the few who have received their letters, they are full of errors. He says that most of these letters either have wrong employment number and right names or vice versa which according to them, it is a game the county government is playing.
“How can someone claim to promote you when your employment number does not resemble your name or your name is totaling different from your employment number.That is what is happening to us and we believe this is just a delaying tactics the government is applying to us,” Lusamba said.
Due to these errors Lusamba said they cannot tell the exact number of nurses and doctors who are fully promoted. The doctors are demanding the county government to find a solution immediately before they can resume to their work stations.
He said that no health service will be offered to all public health facilities until their grievances are fully addressed. They advised patients to go to other private hospitals for medical services until they resume when the government has looked into their cry.
On the other side the organizing secretary of the union Zedekiah Musuku noted the doctors will resume duties after having talks with the officials from the county government.
“There is hope. We know that this strike will be over. We believe that there will be negotiation and I know we will go back as soon as possible. But this will also depend on how immediate the county government is going to respond to it,” added Zedekiah.
This move comes barely hours after the governor Sospeter Ojaamong rubbished claims that doctors were on go slow over promotion issues. Addressing the press in his office Ojaamong said that every demand raised by doctors was handled and they were happy at their work stations.Ojaamong added that there were only few isolated cases remaining in the sector that were being addressed while the larger part was fully implemented.
Ojaamong was responding to the question that doctors at Busia County Health Referral Hospital were on go slow over what they termed as government failing to fully comply to their demands.
However ojaamong admitted that of late the health sector has been most affected by endless challenges but assuring people that, things will normalize soon.
