Nurses to Hold Nationwide Strike Even Before We Are Done With Teachers

The hens have come home to roost. Nurses have threatened to hold a nationwide strike in October if their issues - salaries and allowances - are not resolved by then.

This was long over due. Since the onset of devolution, and even before it, there were questions as to whether county governments had the capacity to handle the health docket. In almost all counties, there has been a disturbing delay in nurses salaries and a committed unwillingness of county governments to sit down with the health officers and their unions and resolve their issues. County governments have instead tried to flex their flabby muscles and threaten to fire striking nurses. This, as we have all witnessed, has had little effect in deterring strikes.

By devolving health to the counties, we may have given these new outfits more than they can chew. The crisis in the health sector has cost us lives and man hours that could have been put to better use. It has put patients and families through unnecessary agony. It is time to rethink health and consider returning it to the central government.

We should never have allowed county governments to run the health docket like a startup business. They should have first been asked to lay the groundwork before being given this docket.