Healthcare crisis looms as nurses issue strike notice

The Kenya National Union of Nurses has issues an ultimatum to President William Ruto's government to either resolve the plight of 8,571 forgotten Covid-19 healthcare workers within 26 days or face a crippling nationwide strike.

Speaking in Nairobi on Thursday, KNUN Secretary General Seth Panyako condemned the government's five-year abandonment of Universal Health Coverage workers who were deployed across all 47 counties during the pandemic with firm promises of permanent employment, pension benefits, and gratuity payments—none of which have materialised.

“The nationwide strike will commence on June 24th, 2025, midnight if our conditions are not met," Panyako announced, setting the stage for a potential healthcare system shutdown that could affect millions of Kenyan patients.

The strike notice escalates a crisis that has simmered since 2020, when the government recruited these workers with promises it has systematically failed to honor.

Five years later, those who stood on the frontlines against a global pandemic find themselves fighting a different battle—one for basic employment dignity and the benefits they were promised when they answered their country's call for help.

Strained healthcare 

The nurses' threat to go on strike risks paralysing Kenya's already strained medical system, where doctors in some counties are on strike with over 8,500 UHC workers out of their working stations, demanding to be confirmed as permanent and pensionable staff.

“The following issues have remained unresolved, some spanning over seven years, despite our efforts to have them amicably resolved, which now constitutes our grounds for a nationwide strike.

According to Mr Panyako, President Ruto’s government has also failed to address the acute nursing shortage in public health facilities.

“Illegal deduction of agency fee by Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH), failure by the Ministry of Health (MoH) to transfer budget and grants to Mathari National Teaching and Referral Hospital, pre-authorization of nurse anesthetists and empanelment of nursing health facilities registered by Nursing Council of Kenya (NCK) and failure to remit third party deductions,” he added while further listing reasons for the planned nationwide strike.

“In this regard, the Union demands that the above be addressed within 26 working days from today, failure to which nurses will commence their strike on July 7,  2025 and shall remain on strike until their issues have been fully addressed,” he said.

He adds: “We are, however, open for dialogue and are committed to a cordial working relationship.”

KNUN’s announcement comes two days after UHC medics staged their 21st day nationwide protest in five years.  

On Sunday this week, while speaking in Garissa, Health CS Aden Duale said he had asked parliament to urgently increase budgetary allocations to the health ministry and immediately allocate an extra Sh4.2 billion for UHC workers.

Mr Duale’s sentiments come after the Council of Governors' Ahmed Abdullahi told off the Health Cabinet Secretary over plans to send the payroll belonging to the UHC medics to counties.

“This arrangement is not acceptable to us, CS Duale is just transferring problems to us, which we are not able to deal with. You, as the health ministry, caused the problem, deal with it until you ensure a seamless arrangement to the contractual end,” he started off.

“The genesis of the problem is that the national government continues to disrespect the constitutional provisions for implementation of the policies that they want undertaken by the counties,” Governor Abdullahi highlighted while noting that they will not accept the payrolls without adequate resources to sort out PnPs and gratuity for the protesting medics.