Three patients have been reported dead in Busia county following the ongoing doctors’ and nurses’ countrywide strike. One person, a 28-year-old man, died on Monday night at Busia county hospital where he had been diagnosed with kidney complication.
According to the hospital’s medical superintendent Dr. David Mukabi, the patient died due to a lack of medication.
He confirmed that they were still having other patients in wards in critical condition, including a woman who had just given birth.
Other casualties were two ladies, one of them, identified as Nasubo Khayoko is the mother to Godfrey Oyiolo who works at Alupe Sub County hospital in Teso south.
He said the mother was discharged from the hospital following the strike and died shortly after reaching home.
Other public hospitals in Busia county remained deserted as patients sought medical services in private hospitals while those who couldn’t afford the high costs in those hospitals remained at home.
Earlier, Busia County Governor Sospeter Ojaamong dismissed the nurses’ strike, “Nurses are not supposed to go on strike, we had discussed most of their grievances and had agreed on how to settle them. But doctors are right to go on strike.”
Addressing journalists in his office, Ojaamong blamed the national government for taking long to discuss issues raised by doctors, “They issued a notice in time but the national government didn’t bother to sit down and discuss with them.”
Doctors and nurses under their unions; Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentists Union (KMPDU) and Kenya National Union of Nurses (KNUN) downed their tools on Monday demanding for the implementation of the 2013 CBA (Collective Bargaining Agreement).
