The Kenya National Union of Nurses and Midwives (KNUNM) has officially announced the date when nurses across the country will go on strike.
Speaking during a press briefing in Kisumu on Friday, August 1, union officials, led by Deputy Secretary General Maurice Opetu, said that nurses will go on industrial action starting August 8, 2025, over the delayed implementation of the 2017 Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA).
KNUNM accused the Council of Governors (CoG) of failing to honour its commitments during a 30-day reconciliation period agreed upon in July.
The officials further alleged that the CoG had shown “a lack of goodwill” in resolving the long-standing CBA stalemate.
Opetu also threatened to paralyse the national nursing internship program, accusing the Ministry of Health of revoking the posting of 306 nursing interns without due process.
He appealed to Health Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale to reconsider the decision, saying some of those affected were due for posting and deserved individual case reviews.
Earlier this week, CS Duale cancelled the 2025/2026 internship placements for 306 Bachelor of Science in Nursing pre-interns across various universities in Kenya. The Ministry of Health said the revocation followed a discovery that the affected individuals were not eligible at the time of posting, having not yet officially graduated.
Also Read: Duale Revokes Internships of Hundreds of Nurses With Immediate Effect
The 306 were part of 2,098 individuals initially posted on July 1, 2025. On July 21, the ministry had also revoked internship offers for an additional 42 individuals, bringing the total number of cancelled placements to 348.
Nurses announce nationwide strike
Despite the ministry’s position, Opetu insisted that the matter required further consultation within the technical teams and should not be handled in a blanket manner.
“The go-slow is to request the CS to take time and have the cases investigated one by one, not grouping them. We have genuine cases that should be reconsidered. We want to tell the colleges and the MTCs whose students come for practice under our supervision and instructions that on the 8th, we are not going to be available for their students. Therefore, they should arrange to recall their students,” said the KNUNM Deputy Secretary General.
Henry Adolwa, KNUM National Trustee, added, “That CBA, the county governments have refused to implement. For that matter, we are not going to take it anymore, and come August 8 2025, the nurses nationwide are going to go for an industrial action, a strike that has never been seen before.”
Among the key grievances raised by nurses is the failure to transition those employed under the Universal Health Coverage (UHC) programme to permanent and pensionable terms.
Also Read: Nurses Announce Date When National Strike Will Start
The union also accused county governments of failing to implement the 2024 revised salary structure, as outlined by the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC).
Additionally, the national government has been faulted for not implementing the return-to-work formula agreed upon in November 2017, while counties have been blamed for stalled negotiations and delays in concluding new CBAs.
Procession and request for security
In the lead-up to the planned industrial action, the union issued a formal notice of procession and request for security, dated July 31, 2025, and signed by Secretary General Seth Panyako.
According to the notice, nurses will stage a peaceful protest on August 5, 2025, beginning at 9:00 a.m. The procession will commence with a gathering at Green Park Railways, then proceed along Ngong Road to the MoH Headquarters (Afya House) in Upper Hill, where the nurses intend to present their grievances to CS Duale.
From there, the protestors will head to Parliament Road, where they plan to hand over petitions to the Speakers of the Senate and the National Assembly. The demonstration will conclude with a return to Green Park, where participants are expected to disperse.
The union emphasised that the protest seeks to shine a spotlight on the “plight of UHC nurses” and other unresolved issues affecting the nursing profession across the country.
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