After years of a never-ending back and forth, thousands of Universal Health Coverage (UHC) staff are set to be employed on permanent terms by the Ministry of Health.
The latest development was revealed by Health Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale after a meeting with officials from the Kenya National Union of Nurses (KNUN) and the Kenya Union of Clinical Officers (KUCO).
In the deal, over 8,000 UHC staff will transition to permanent terms after a July verification exercise involving national government, the Council of Governors (CoG), and union teams.
According to Duale, the process will entail accurate payrolls and guide staff integration into the nation’s health systems. UHC staff in Kenya have largely been on contractual terms since 2019, when they were first employed.
However, Duale fell short of revealing the details of the workers’ remuneration, and other benefits were not made available.
Many of these healthcare workers were initially brought on board as part of the country's broader efforts to roll out the UHC program, and their numbers were significantly boosted in June 2020 at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
They were given three-year contracts, which meant their contracts were to expire in May 2023.
The contracts were extended for one year, with the CoG later directing county service public boards to renew the UHC workers' contracts for three years instead (until May 2026), based on a letter from the Ministry of Health.
Fast forward to this year, the government announced that it would no longer handle the payments of UHC staff, directing that their payroll be transferred to the counties. Under the new plan, counties will receive funding to sustain current salary terms during the transition.
To facilitate the absorption, the government allocated Ksh7.8 billion to absorb 8,571 UHC staff into permanent positions.
However, this was not well received by the counties, who claimed the government had not channelled the funds to their coffers, leaving them with a huge burden to bear.
For their part, CoG accused Duale of mismanagement, accusing him of fast-tracking the transfer of the UHC staff to counties without the accompanying funds to take care of their salaries and gratuity.
On the matter of the absorption, COG averred that it would be akin to committing to a programme blindly, as there are still funding challenges between themselves and the National Government, thus rendering the move an exercise in futility.
The latest move comes after the UHC staff previously staged demos at the Ministry of Health headquarters and Parliament, demanding employment on permanent and pensionable terms, or to be paid gratuity for having worked for the last six years, then be allowed to seek fresh mandates in individual counties.
