Striking UHC medics left empty-handed, again, despite long protests

Universal Health Coverage (UHC) workers who have waged an 18-week nationwide strike demanding permanent employment have been dealt a fresh blow, with the government postponing allocation for their benefits to the next financial year.

This, despite Treasury Cabinet Secretary John Mbadi announcing Sh6.2 billion for UHC program management and coordination during Thursday's budget reading.

The 8,571 medics deployed to Covid-19 frontline five years ago will only receive Sh1.1 billion in the 2025/2026 budget out of the Sh4.2 billion they had requested to hire them on permanent and pensionable terms.

This means the protesting UHC medics will continue earning a stipend of Sh50,000 that they have been on since 2020.

“The Sh1.1 billion allocated in the 2025/2026 budget that was read today by Treasury CS John Mbadi is for stipends. Remember the government cannot effectively plan for a workforce that even the health ministry and governors, who are their employers, don’t know exactly how many they are,” said a senior health ministry official who’s not authorized to speak to the media but attended the high-level meeting.

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He disclosed to the Nation that the consensus reached was that PnPs and Gratuity should just be sorted out together when UHC health workers’ contracts expire in 2026, which is why they will now be included in the 2026 supplementary budget.

The health workers, comprising 17 medical cadres dispatched to all 47 counties, were originally promised permanent and pensionable terms along with gratuity payments when they joined the Covid-19 response.

Five years later, these commitments remain unfulfilled despite their prolonged industrial action.

Instead of immediate relief, the workers have been told to wait another year. According to both the Ministry of Health and the Council of Governors, the UHC medics will only be considered for permanent employment in the 2026/2027 budget cycle.

This decision was reached during a closed-door meeting on Tuesday, co-chaired by Health CS Aden Duale and Council of Governors chair Ahmed Abdullahi.

"We agreed to conduct a joint audit of UHC medics. The health ministry will manage their payroll until contracts end in 2026 and ensure gratuity payment," Mr Abdullahi announced. "A major step is the Ministry of Health's commitment to allocate funds next financial year to hire UHC workers permanently, strengthening our healthcare system."

The high-level meeting was also attended by Kirinyaga Governor Anne Waiguru, who is the former CoG chair, Tharaka Nithi Governor Muthomi Njuki, the CoG Health Committee chair, State House and healthy ministry officials.

Governor Waiguru said their deliberations were a follow up from an earlier State House meeting with President William Ruto and CoG.

“We agreed on the following: verify UHC employee numbers, health ministry to retain UHC payroll until the end of the financial year and health ministry to consult Treasury on funding and transition of UHC to PnP,” Ms Waiguru stated.

The announcement offers little comfort to workers who have endured 18 weeks of strikes, forgoing salaries while demanding job security. Their prolonged protests, which disrupted healthcare services across the country, appear to have yielded no immediate gains despite the government's ability to fund UHC operations.

For the 8,571 UHC medics who sacrificed their safety during the pandemic and their livelihoods during recent strikes, the 2025/2026 budget represents another year of broken promises and continued uncertainty about their employment status.

The workers now face the prospect of extending their contracts under the same temporary terms they have been protesting against, with only vague assurances that their permanent employment will be addressed in next year's budget, a promise they have heard before.

Counties have since been given 30 days to do a proper headcount of all UHC medics in their respective counties to root out ‘ghost workers’ who Mr Njuki placed at 3,000.

The high-level meeting further resolved to give counties the go ahead to replace the UHC staffers who abandoned their contracts for greener pastures and replaced by other medics desperately searching for employment.

The meeting also resolved that the health ministry will retain their payroll for the time being and not transfer it back to counties by July 1st 2025 as CS Duale had announced.