Clinical Officers have announced that they will go on strike this Friday. The COs will be striking to demand for better pay.
“We are the major stakeholders in the health system. We are custodians of primary healthcare in this country. Our wages must reflect the same,” said Kenya Clinical Officers Association national secretary Erick Ondieki.
The clinical officers complained that the government and the council of Governors have been engaging them in mock negotiations without putting a solid deal on the table.
“Most of the public hospitals in the country are being managed by clinical officers and you know what it means if we join our colleagues on the street. We have bailed out the government and the public from extreme suffering and they want to treat us as drivers,” said Vincent Owaa, a representative for Kisumu County clinical officers. He further complained that the SRC has grouped them with clerks and supplementary staffs in job group C1.
Mr. Owaa added that since the doctors’ strike began, reproductive clinicians have been performing successful surgeries such as cataract, caesarean, orthopaedics, anaesthesia. The on-going doctors’ strike has paralyzed operations at all public hospitals and left duties previously handled by doctors in the hands of clinical officers and nurses.
