Kenya sacks 25,000 nurses for striking
Health worker representatives said the government's decision was reckless
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Kenya's government has sacked some 25,000 striking nurses for failing to return to work.
Spokesman Alfred Mutua has appealed to "all qualified health professionals who are unemployed or retired" to report to public hospitals for jobs on Friday.
The public health workers, who are mainly nurses, have been on strike since last week demanding better pay, allowances and working conditions.
The unions have dismissed the move as a negotiating tactic.
"These are cat-and-mouse games, you cannot sack an entire workforce. It is a ploy to get us to rush back to work, but our strike continues until our demands are met," Reuters news agency quotes Alex Orina, spokesman of the Kenya Health Professionals Society as saying.
He said that on average a health worker earns about 25,000 Kenyan shillings ($300, £190) a month in salary and allowances.
But Mr Mutua said the health workers were being "unethical" by not returning to their duties.
He said their names had been removed from the payroll and they were "no longer employees of the government".
Dr Victor Ng'ani, chairman of the Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union, said it was a "reckless" decision.
He told the BBC it would be difficult to replace people with many years of experience and specialised skills.
The Kenyan  has dismissed 25,000 striking health workers, mostly nurses, citing failure to heed government orders to recommence work and concern for the welfare of hospital patients. Speaking on behalf of the government, Alfred Mutua stated the workers were dismissed "illegally striking" and "defying the directive ... to report back to work", which he called "unethical". The government asks that "all qualified health professionals, who are unemployed and/or retired have been advised to report to their nearest health facility for interviews and deployment", Mutua stated.

The workers, who had been on strike for four days, were wishing to have improvements made to their wages, working conditions, and allowances. The strikes have caused a significant number of Kenyan hospitals to cease operations. According to Kenya Health Professionals Society spokesperson Alex Orina, the average monthly wage plus allowances for health workers in Kenya is 25,000 (193, 302 or 230) approximately. With an increasing number of reports of patients neglected in hospitals emerging, two trade unions met with the Kenyan government yesterday and negotitated a return to work, although a significant proportion of demonstrators defied the agreement, '''' reported.

Orina told '''' the dismissals were "cat-and-mouse games, you cannot sack an entire workforce. It is a ploy to get us to rush back to work, but our strike continues until our demands are met". Frederick Omiah, a member of the same society, believed the government's actions would "make an already delicate and volatile situation worse", expressing concern that demonstrations may continue in the capital , amongst other locations. Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union chairperson Dr. Victor Ng'ani described government actions as "reckless".

Mutua said the health workers were "no longer employees of the government" and had been eliminated from the payroll. While Ng'ani told the BBC of difficulties with finding other workers as skilled and experienced, Mutua reportedly stated that this would not be an issue. "We have over 100,000 to 200,000 health professionals looking for work today," Mutua commented. "There will be a lag of a day or two ... but it is better than letting people die on the floor, at the gate, or suffer in pain".