The United Kingdom government has refuted reports that the government will get a share of salaries paid to Kenyan nurses working in the London.
In a statement through the Nursing Times - a nursing website in Europe, the Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson reassured the Kenyan nurses seeking employment in the UK that they will be paid directly, without any intermediaries or third parties.
These nurses, the spokesperson stated, will not be required to give a percentage to the Kenyan government as reported by the Nursing Times on Wednesday, September 22.
“The Government of Kenya will not receive any money from the salaries of Kenyan nurses working in the National Health Service (NHS)."
“Under the agreement between the UK and Kenya, nurses will be employed by NHS trusts under individual contracts and their salaries will be paid directly to them,” the NHS official reiterated.
However, Chief Executive of the International Council of Nurses, Howard Catton, raised concerns with the NHS deal between Kenya and the UK.
Catton stated that there was a need to unravel why the UK was employing Kenyan nurses in the first place, why the nurses were unemployed in their own country and whether the UK had created enough funded nursing positions in the country to meet the demand.
He, nonetheless, clarified that he had not seen the finer details of the deal signed by President Uhuru Kenyata and UK’s Prime Minister, Borris Johnson. 20,000 nurses from Kenya are expected to travel and work in the UK in October 2021.
Earlier reports had claimed that the Ministry of Health officials in Kenya were pushing to have the government enjoy the largest share of the nurses' pay.
“There is nothing wrong with this deal but we wish that the government would disclose the agreement so that we know how much the government is getting and how much the health workers will get,” Kenya Union of Clinical Officers (KUCO) Secretary General, George Gibore, lamented.
A bachelor’s degree and 18 months of work experience were among the relevant qualifications needed for the nurses travelling to the UK.
