Two More Health Workers Succumb To COVID-19 – KMPDU Confirms

Two more healthcare workers have died of Covid-19, Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentists Board (KMPDB) chairperson Samuel Oroko has revealed.

This brings to three, the number of medics who have lost their lives to the virus.

First was Dr Adisa Lugaliki who died on Friday while receiving treatment at Aga Khan Hospital.

According to Mr Oroko, health care workers on the frontline should not pay medical bills.

He also demanded that the medics receive a compensation package.

“We emphasize that the compensation package for health workers must be implemented. It is not a request. It is a demand that health care workers are protected or they will choose other options including staying in their own houses,” he said on Saturday.

KMPDU acting secretary general Chibanzi Mwachonda on his part said that the government should make it their responsibility to distribute Personal Protective Equipment (PPE).

“To Kenyans the disease is real. You have a responsibility to protect not just yourselves but we the health care workers. There is no amount of money that will compensate a family for the loss of their loved one. It is our civic duty to protect protect Kenyans, and these Kenyans are our relatives.

“The death of one of our own injures our morale,” Mwachonda said.

He also noted that the union has proposed that an isolation facility for frontliners is set up at Kenyatta University Referral Hospital.

“We have been soldering on hoping as we go on we will have a dedicated facility. The government should consider waiving the cost of testing kits to ensure the cost of testing to Kenyans is affordable,” he added.

Dr Adisa is said to have contracted the virus from a colleague.

She left behind twin boys.

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