The Nakuru county government discriminated against its contracted healthcare workers in the payment of their allowances during the Covid-19 period.

New revelations by the front line workers have exposed the inhuman treatment that the health workers on contract went through as they battled against the Covid-19 pandemic.

According to the sources, the county despite allocating Sh 885,621,252 for Covid-19 vaccination activities which included transportation, training and capacity building, denied the front line workers their allowances and neither provided them with access to medical care.

Ken*, a contracted nurse at the Nakuru Level five hospital indicated that the county promised to give them a Sh10,000 allowance each after attending a 2 weeks training on Covid-19 prevention, treatment and management but failed to honour the promise.

According to him the county had instead paid the nurses who were on permanent and pensionable terms Sh 10,000 each, leaving them aside.

The nurses however claim the permanent staff had been on strike during the time and felt it was unfair for the county to discriminate against the contracted workers who were on duty the whole time.

“We were about 171 contracted nurses who were taken through a two weeks continuous training in addition to the weekly Continuous Medical Education while the nurses on permanent and pensionable terms went on strike. We however were shocked when they were paid the Sh 10,000 covid-19 allowance which had been promised to us,” said Ken.

The health workers were also denied proper medical attention in the event they contracted the virus as they were left to foot for their treatment.

Ken says he contracted the disease three times which he personally footed the treatment bill.

“Nobody took care of us when we got sick, we had to find our own way of footing the treatment expenses,” said Kenn.

Another nurse Janet, also not her real name, said she worked on contract since 2016 without being employed before the pandemic came where she joined the frontline workers alongside her other colleagues.

Janet indicates that they were forced to take a sick leave of a few days in order to seek treatment.

“there were fears that we may lose our jobs if we went home for long so we had to persevere with the ailment at the hospital until the time it became unbearable. Unfortunately for all the sacrifice and risks that I exposed myself and my family to, I received nothing in return,” said Janet.

‘Lilian’ who worked at the Isolation rooms said they had been promised monthly stipends on top of their salaries which were never paid.

According to her, sometimes the nurses were overwhelmed by the workload when some of their colleagues who contracted Covid 19 went on quarantine.

“We experienced a serious shortage of nurses after some of our colleagues went into isolation while the nurses on permanent and pensionable terms went on strike. However, we were promised the stipends so as to continue working,” she said.

As per the Consolidated special audit report of the Auditor General on the Covid 19 roll out in Kenya released on March 31,2022 the health care workers were to be trained to be competent on; knowledge on Covid-19 disease; Vaccine demand creation, health facility preparation, safe vaccine administration, infection control practices, patient data management.

The Auditor General’s report on the Special Audit of Covid-19 Vaccine Roll Out for the County Government indicated that the Nakuru County Management had confirmed that training was undertaken through the assistance of the development Partners.

During the period the county further launched a training programme for its medical personnel on home-based care and support services for suspected patients in June 2020.

The report however, flagged the county for not giving documentary evidence of the breakdown of the actual expenditures contrary to National Treasury Circular No. 9/2020 dated 23 July 2020 which required ministries, departments and agencies to report disaster related expenditures separately.

The Nakuru Level Five Hospital Medical Superintendent Dr James Waweru confirmed that all the front line workers were supposed to receive some stipends but he cannot tell whether they all received.

He claims it was in the budget of the county government which the hospital was not handling.

“The budget for the covid 19 activities was being handled by the county government. We also have bills from the covid 19 services which are yet to be paid. We bought consumables and treated patients for free and we are yet to receive the reimbursement,” said Dr Waweru.

Dr John Murima the Nakuru county Chief Officer for health services declined to comment on the subject which he said he was not in office by then.

“I was not there so I cannot comment on something that happened before I assumed this office,” said Dr Murima.

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Nakuru contracted health workers give sad account of Covid 19 period

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Joseph Openda