New trainee nurses and clinical officers will receive reduced wages, according to a court ruling handed down last week, the Ministry of Health announced.

Public Health SP Mary Muthoni said only medical trainees would await negotiations on their scholarships as directed by the courts.

In a letter to Public Service PS Amos Gathecha, Muthoni said he would pay the rest of the trainees in line with the stipends stipulated by the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) in March.

“Due to the ruling, we are now proceeding to pay Bsc Nursing, Bsc Clinical Officers and Clinical Officers (Diploma) trainees as per SRC circular. The rest of the trainees represented by KMPDU (medical officers, dentist and pharmacist) will await negotiations as directed by the court,” Muthoni said in the November 7 letter to PS Gathecha.

“The purpose of this letter is therefore to request new designation codes for Bsc Nursing, Bsc Clinical Officers and Clinical Officer (Diploma) to reflect the scholarship rates as approved by the SRC in the attached circular to allows us to continue paying their scholarship. ”

According to the March SRC circular, clinical officer trainees (diploma holder) would receive between Sh27,000 and Sh35,000 while clinical officer trainees will receive between Sh35,000 and Sh50,000.

Nursing Officer Trainees (Diploma) will receive stipends between Sh35,000 and Sh50,000, while Dental Officer Trainees will receive between Sh47,000 and Sh70,000.

Pharmacist trainees and medical officer trainees will receive between Sh47,000 and Sh70,000.

The remuneration figure in the second letter was a revision from the first, which proposed a payment of Sh25,000 for clinical officer trainees (degree holders). There are currently 1,210 medical, dental and pharmacy trainees in Kenya.

There are 145 degree clinical officers, 1,270 diploma clinical officers and 1,283 nursing officer trainees.

The Kenya National Union of Nurses is still pushing for a bigger stipend for its trainees. Secretary General Seth Panyako last week wrote to Health CS Deborah Barasa demanding at least Sh74,000 for each nursing trainee after deductions.

“While we understand that this is a temporary solution, we encourage our continued commitment to addressing the issue of domestic compensation until a long-term solution is found,” he said.

SRC Chair Lynn Mengich said in March that all allocations were revised downward due to affordability, sustainability, fairness and equity.

She said the highest paid intern in the government currently receives R25,000.

“You can’t take trainees and give a salary to another category because £206,000 is actually the entry salary of doctors who have completed their training.Just because it happened in the past doesn’t make them right,” Mengich said.

The president emphasized that this is not a reduction because those affected are trainees who have just graduated from college and therefore do not earn any amount.

“The first thing is to make it clear that there is no discount because you can’t discount what you don’t have. What we have established is a new stipend for interns who are just posted, so the discount issue is not fair because you are only discounting what you already have,” Mengich clarified.

However, she said those trainees who were currently earning a different amount at the time would not be affected by the changes.