Home / Health / Kenyan Nurses End 43-Day Strike After Deal
Kenyan Nurses End 43-Day Strike After Deal
9 Sep
Summary
- Nurses strike in Kenya concluded after 43 days with a return-to-work agreement.
- Negotiations on a 2017 CBA will occur within 45 days.
- Doctors threatened to join nurses if issues were not resolved promptly.
After 43 days, a significant nurses' strike in Kenya has concluded. Union secretary-general Seth Panyako announced that nurses would return to hospitals within 24 hours, following the signing of a return-to-work agreement.
This agreement sets a 45-day period for concluding negotiations on a collective bargaining agreement first reached in 2017. The 2017 agreement, which followed a previous six-month strike, has remained unimplemented, with the government citing budgetary constraints.
The resolution came as doctors had begun expressing solidarity with the nurses. Dr. Davji Bhimji Atellah, secretary-general of the doctors' union, stated that doctors were overburdened covering for striking nurses and warned of their own strike if the issues were not addressed within seven days.
Concerns over the strike's impact were voiced in the Senate, where Nandi County's Sen. Samson Cherargei highlighted a surge in deaths and blamed county governments and the Salaries and Remuneration Commission for the crisis.
