When members of a nurses’ welfare association in Bondo, Siaya County unveiled their new hearse vehicle on Friday, November 6, they likely didn’t expect to find themselves at the centre of a national debate.
Images of the hearse being commissioned by Siaya’s Acting Chief Health Officer Eunice Fwaya quickly went viral.
While a section of Kenyans commended the nurses for making smart investments, others posed moral questions given their position as caregivers.
One of their members, John Ogeya, opposed the move by his colleagues to purchase the Ksh2.8 million hearse.
“This is a step in the wrong direction by the nurses,” he wrote in a county Whatsapp group that has top officials among its members.
The fact that the hand-over was attended by Fwaya and photos shared on the county government’s social media accounts was seen as an endorsement of the initiative.
The acting Chief Health Officer, Fwaya, as well as acting Communications Director Auscar Wambiya, however, both came out in defense of the nurses.
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They argued that while the nurses do their best to give the best possible care to patients, there isn’t much they can do once they succumb to illness.
The initiative also comes against the backdrop of documented poor remuneration and working conditions experienced by nurses around the country. The issues have been responsible for numerous strike notices and other industrial action by the nurses’ union.
The lack of health insurance, for instance, has previously led nurses in Siaya County to strike as they are left exposed to diseases as front-line workers.
Dominic Omolo, an official of the Nurses’ Association who also coordinates ambulance services in Siaya, noted that the hearse would help them in burying their colleagues.
He further argued that the acquisition would help members of the public in a county where availability of hearses was an issue.
Omolo observed that they often received requests from people seeking to use hospital ambulances to ferry bodies of their loved ones.
“Hiring a hearse from Kisumu costs at least Sh20,000…I often explain to them that the policy (on use of ambulances for burials) does not allow it, and you can see how dejected they are after that answer,” he stated.
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