Kenya Nurses’ Strike: Where Can Patients Seek Care as Hospital Crisis Deepens?

Kenya's prolonged nurses' strike has moved beyond a dispute over pay and working conditions into a public health crisis. For patients, the urgent question is increasingly practical: if your local public hospital is affected, where can you get treatment?

The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR) has called for urgent intervention as the nationwide nurses' strike continues to disrupt maternity, emergency, dialysis and other essential services.

The commission said on Friday that the industrial action was threatening constitutional rights to health, life and emergency treatment.

Nurses have been on strike for more than five weeks, while some other health workers have also taken industrial action.

The main unresolved issue is implementation of the 2017 Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA). The Kenya National Union of Nurses and Midwives says it will not end the national strike without an agreement on the CBA.

Are all public hospitals closed?

No.

The impact varies significantly between counties and facilities.

Some hospitals are operating with reduced staff, while others have struggled to admit patients. Mbagathi Hospital, for example, has been using locum nurses to maintain some services, although management says it is not operating at full staffing capacity.

Some counties have also reached separate agreements with nurses. In Trans Nzoia, nurses returned to work this week after signing a return-to-work agreement following a 42-day strike.

Patients should therefore confirm the status of their nearest facility before travelling, particularly for non-emergency treatment.

Maternity and newborn care under pressure

The greatest concern is around services that cannot simply be postponed.

Health professional associations reported eight maternal, 16 neonatal and 55 perinatal deaths over several days this week.

However, those figures should not be interpreted as proof that the strike directly caused all 79 deaths.

KNCHR has specifically called for the cases to be independently investigated and compared with normal mortality levels to establish the circumstances.

Medical professionals have also warned that some women are giving birth outside health facilities as services become harder to access.

What should patients do?

For emergencies, patients should not assume that healthcare is completely unavailable.

KNCHR has called on national and county governments to guarantee continuity of emergency, maternity, neonatal, intensive-care, dialysis, oncology, trauma, ambulance and referral services.

Higher-level referral hospitals may continue receiving some specialised cases, although doctors have warned they may not have enough capacity to absorb patients displaced from other public facilities.

Private and faith-based hospitals are another option, but cost remains a major concern.

KNCHR has consequently asked the Social Health Authority (SHA) to ensure patients displaced by the strike can access alternative accredited facilities without facing prohibitive out-of-pocket expenses.

The practical advice is to call the facility before travelling, establish whether the required service is operating and, where necessary, ask about referral to another SHA-accredited hospital.

After more than five weeks, Kenya's nurses' strike is no longer only about what happens at the negotiating table.

For patients, it has become a question of where they can safely receive treatment today.