Treat health workers well to avert a crisis

The vote by MPs to compel the government to pay health workers a range of benefits is the latest effort to resolve a vexed matter that has dragged on for far too long.

For months now, health workers have complained about poor working conditions and demanded that the government provides them with personal protection equipment, comprehensive medical insurance and enhanced allowances to cushion them against the perils of Covid-19.

However, the best they receive are promises but no commensurate action.

Medical workers are on the frontline in curbing and managing the virus, which puts them in harm’s way. Already, about 30 doctors have died from the pandemic and more than 2,000 others infected.

Numbers of clinical officers and nurses affected are even higher, which is the reason they require protection and better compensation in case they are infected.

This casual treatment of health workers comes at great cost to the country. Already, the various unions representing different cadres of health workers have issued notices to go on strike to protest the government’s failure to honour the promise to improve their working conditions.

This week, the Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union (KMPDU) restated its stand that its members will stop working as from next week if the government does not meet their demands. Similar threats have come from nurses’ and clinical officers’ unions. This portends chaos for the health sector.

What is galling is that whereas the frontline workers are grappling with serious existential dangers, monies allocated to deal with the virus are going to waste. So much money has been lost through dubious deals at the Kenya Medical Supplies Authority and Health Ministry.

It beats reason why health workers should be left to suffer their own fate yet there is so much money allocated to containing the virus. The government has to meet their demands to win the war against the pandemic.