Millicent just like millions of mothers in Kenya prefers to take her children to public hospitals for their routine immunisation programmes.
Her baby is due for the pneumococcal vaccine having turned 14 weeks.
But unlike other routine visits, she arrived at the hospital only to get stranded. No services were being offered.
Nurses and clinicians have downed their tools to protest the deaths of their colleagues due to Covid-19 and lack of quality Personal Protective Equipment.
“It is painful to see days going by without getting help,” Millicent said.
Given the importance of the vaccine, she has no option but to seek the services elsewhere.
The pneumococcal vaccine is very vital and helps fight against the bacterium Streptococcus pneumonia that helps prevent some cases of pneumonia, meningitis and sepsis.
With the nurses and clinical officers’ strike entering the second week Monday, hospitals have been deserted with a handful of frustrated patients.
Most patients who had been admitted at various county hospitals were cleared and asked to seek treatment elsewhere except those who were in critical condition.
In his Jamhuri Day speech, President Uhuru Kenyatta kept off the crisis in the health sector instead rooted for the BBI.
The President said there were 20,910 isolation beds and 827 infectious diseases ICU beds across the country but did not speak about the strike.
“Most ICU facilities being paraded by governors have no qualified staff thus not functional. Health has become an economic and political tool to generate business capital for the political class,” National Nurses Association President Alfred Obengo said.
He added, “When it is politically expedient for the political class to address the health workers to please the electorate who can’t access Universal Health Care, they will do it, albeit with no long-term solution for the collapsed public healthcare system.”
The Kenya Union of Clinical Officers secretary-general George Gibore on Sunday told the Star on the phone that the government is not being realistic.
He said the Covid-19 situation was worsening.
He cited the case of four healthcare workers who succumbed to Covid-19 in private facilities after they failed to secure an ICU bed in public hospitals.
“We have seen the number of infections still rising during the second wave and many healthcare workers being infected due to Covid-19 but hardly have we seen a change of strategy to help curb the spread of the virus,” Gibore said.
“We as healthcare workers are still pushing the government to redirect its priority because the priority is elsewhere and you could see how his (President’s) statement was rich on the issues of BBI but was very poor on the issue of health.”
Kenya National Union of Nurses secretary-general Seth Panyako told the Star he was optimistic that the end of the ongoing strike will give birth to a lasting solution to the industrial actions in the sector.
He said all government departments were in discussions to end the stalemate.
“I don’t know why the President is continuing to give a wide berth to matters health and is talking about beds when we have health workers who are dying and Kenyans are dying because health services are grounded,” Panyako said.
Some 13 doctors, nine clinical officers and 29 nurses have died of coronavirus.
Panyako said the meetings have been taken with the seriousness they deserve with officials from the Salaries and Remuneration Commission also attending.
“We believe that if the seriousness we have seen the last week continues, by Friday we might have a solution that will be in place for a period of four years,” he said.