Determining the human resource factors influencing strikes among healthcare workers in public hospitals in Nairobi County, Kenya

Abstract

In Kenya, the Central Association of Trade Unions (COTU-K) has revealed that there has been an increase in labor cases and strikes. A majority of these cases involve the Union representatives and the public authorities. These strikes cause huge moral discussions, due to their capacity to hurt patients likedeterioration of health, an increase in mortality cases, or a complete shutdown of healthcare facilities. This research aimed to investigate thehuman resource factorsinfluencing strikes among Healthcare workers in public hospitals in Nairobi County, Kenya, and their effects on service delivery. The study adopted the descriptive research design, targeting healthcare workers at Mama Lucy Kibaki Hospital, Kenyatta National Teaching and Referral Hospital, Pumwani Maternity Hospital, Mbagathi Hospital, and Ngara Health Center. 400 participants were selected using Mugenda’s (2003) formula. Data was collected using self-administered questionnaires and processed using the SPSS program, version 26.0, with the level of significance set at 0.05. Chi-square test statistics were employed and analyzed data presented both descriptively, and inferentially using tables.The study found that human resource factors which included staffing level of hospitals (p-value<0.001, (X2(2,N=346)=35.031,p−value<0.001) with OR = 4.875 and CI = (2.804, 8.475), overworking of HCWs/Heavy workloads (X2(3,N=346)=31.244, p-value<0.001) with OR = 0.344 and CI = (0.144, 0.824) and longer shifts (X2(3,N=346)=36.614, p-value<0.001) with OR = 0.669 and CI = (0.240, 1.864) had a significant effect on strikes by healthcare workers. The study further found that strikes affect service delivery in aspects such as putting patients at risk, a drop-in outpatient, evacuation of in-patients, jeopardizing of quality of services, destruction of hospital equipment, and in some cases, a complete shutdown of the hospital. The study recommends that the government should buffer the Health workforce through recruitment, training, and development to cater tothe shortages. Human resource departments should develop rotational duty Rota’s, and assign manageable workloads to avoid longer shifts and burnout of the health workers.