NEWS IN BRIEF March 2025

The Kenya Union of Clin­i­cal Offi­cers (KUCO) has offi­cial­ly called off its strike fol­low­ing suc­cess­ful nego­ti­a­tions with the Min­istry of Health and the Coun­cil of Gov­er­nors. The agree­ment, for­mal­ized through a Mem­o­ran­dum of Under­stand­ing, paves the way for clin­i­cal offi­cers to resume duty with­in 24 hours. Speak­ing after the sign­ing, Health Cab­i­net Sec­re­tary Dr. Deb­o­rah Barasa acknowl­edged the crit­i­cal role clin­i­cal offi­cers play in deliv­er­ing essen­tial health­care ser­vices. She reaf­firmed the Ministry’s com­mit­ment to address­ing their con­cerns while ensur­ing unin­ter­rupt­ed health­care for all Kenyans.

The Coun­cil of Gov­er­nors, led by Chair­man Gov­er­nor Ahmed Abdul­lahi, also reit­er­at­ed the impor­tance of col­lab­o­ra­tion in improv­ing health­care deliv­ery. The sign­ing of the agree­ment was under­tak­en by Prin­ci­pal Sec­re­tary for Pub­lic Health and Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards, Ms. Mary Muthoni, and Prin­ci­pal Sec­re­tary for Med­ical Ser­vices, Mr. Har­ry Kim­tai, among oth­er offi­cials.

Cab­i­net Sec­re­tary for Health, Dr. Deb­o­rah Barasa has reaf­firmed the Ministry’s com­mit­ment to sus­tain­ing Kenya’s HIV response despite dis­rup­tions caused by the U.S. Exec­u­tive Order which impos­es a 90-day pause on for­eign devel­op­ment assis­tance. Speak­ing at a High-Lev­el Con­sul­ta­tive Meet­ing with the Coun­cil of Gov­er­nors, the Nation­al Assem­bly, the Sen­ate, and part­ners, Dr. Barasa empha­sized the need for local­ized solu­tions. She was joined by Prin­ci­pal Sec­re­tary for Med­ical Ser­vices, Mr. Har­ry Kim­tai, Direc­tor Gen­er­al for Health and oth­er senior min­istry offi­cials. The CS urged coun­ty gov­ern­ments to increase fund­ing for HIV pro­grams through the Facil­i­ties Improve­ment Fund (FIF) and called on Par­lia­ment to pri­or­i­tize health sec­tor bud­getary allo­ca­tions. She assured stake­hold­ers that the Min­istry has been active­ly engag­ing the U.S. Gov­ern­ment through bilat­er­al dis­cus­sions with the Charge d’Affaires to under­stand the Exec­u­tive Order and advo­cate for advance notice in future actions.

Frank Tet­zel, and a del­e­ga­tion from Ger­many, paid a cour­tesy vis­it to Shadrack Mwadime, Prin­ci­pal Sec­re­tary for Labour and Skills Devel­op­ment. The meet­ing focused on an upcom­ing road­show sched­uled to take place in Ger­many ear­ly next month. The pri­ma­ry objec­tive of the vis­it was to estab­lish a clear roadmap and pro­vide an overview of the loca­tions that will be vis­it­ed dur­ing the road­show. This ini­tia­tive aims to explore job oppor­tu­ni­ties for Kenyans, fos­ter­ing inter­na­tion­al col­lab­o­ra­tion and enhanc­ing employ­ment prospects for the work­force. Both par­ties expressed opti­mism about the poten­tial out­comes of the road­show, empha­siz­ing the impor­tance of cre­at­ing path­ways for Kenyans to access job mar­kets abroad. The dis­cus­sions high­light­ed a com­mit­ment to sup­port­ing skill devel­op­ment and employ­ment ini­tia­tives that ben­e­fit both nations.

More than 5,500 res­i­dents of Oth­aya con­stituen­cy joined SHA recent­ly fol­low­ing a vig­or­ous cam­paign being spear­head­ed by area Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment Wambugu Wainaina alias Kìrì­ma. Through his char­i­ta­ble cau­cus, Wambugu Wainaina Foun­da­tion, the MP has been going round the con­stituen­cy pre­vail­ing upon the locals to reg­is­ter for the new health insur­ance scheme. “Dur­ing the last reg­is­tra­tion exer­cise that was spon­sored by the Wambugu Wainaina Foun­da­tion, through our great CHP’s yield­ed good results and major­i­ty of our peo­ple reg­is­tered across the Con­stituen­cy. Through this effort and con­tin­u­ous civic edu­ca­tion we man­aged to get over  5500 peo­ple reg­is­tered with SHA,” the MP not­ed, adding that the reg­is­tra­tion sen­si­ti­za­tion and exer­cise will con­tin­ue until all con­stituents join the gov­ern­ment health scheme.