Reprieve for the 7,414 Universal Health Coverage workers as the Ministry of Health announced that their transition from contract to Permanent and Pensionable (PnP) terms is now officially complete.

🇰🇪 Breaking It Down

This was confirmed through a notice by Health Principal Secretary Dr Ouma Oluga, addressed to the Principal Secretary at the State Department for Public Service and Human Capital Development, Dr Jane Imbunya, as reported by  Kenyans.co.ke   on July 15. The letter references an earlier communication dated July 9, which had requested the full migration of UHC staff payroll from the national government to all 47 County Governments. That migration was set to take effect from July 1, marking a major shift in how thousands of health workers are paid and managed.

“Reference is made to our letter Ref. No. MOH/ADM/II/II/170 Vol. III dated 9th July, 2026, requesting the central migration of the UHC staff payroll from the National Government to the respective County Governments with effect from 1st July, 2026,” stated the letter in part.

PS Oluga's letter also cites a presidential directive dated 9th September 2025, instructing the Ministry of Health to convert all UHC staff from contract to Permanent and Pensionable status. “His Excellency the President, vide letter Ref. No. OP/CAB.26/1/3A/VOL.XII/(60) dated 9th September, 2025 (copy attached), directed that the Ministry of Health translate all UHC staff terms of service from contract to Permanent and Pensionable,” stated PS Oluga.

📌 What You Need to Know

Further, the Public Service Commission had further advised, in a letter dated April 22, that the process be concluded by June 30, with no room for further contract extensions.

Based on these directives, the State Department for Medical Services now considers the translation of all UHC staff terms complete, pending a full payroll handover to the counties. On the flipside, behind this announcement lies a long and messy history that these workers have had to endure, with perpetual fights over money, with counties insisting they could not sustain thousands of workers on permanent payrolls without proper funding. To note is that these workers came into the picture during the 2020 Covi-19 pandemic when the Ministry of Health hired them on a contractual basis to reinforce the healthcare manpower needed to suppress the virus.

Parliament had allocated Ksh8.94 billion for the transition last month, but the cash came as a one-year conditional grant, a setup that the CoG and health unions rejected as unsustainable for a longer time, despite  President William Ruto ordering governors  to fully absorb them last month unconditionally.

Unions, including the Kenya Medical and Dentistry Practitioners Union (KMPDU), pushed instead for the funds to be folded into the equitable share framework, arguing that a temporary grant could not guarantee long-term job security.

Things got messier when a nationwide joint headcount audit in August 2025 uncovered over 200 people on the UHC payroll who were either unqualified or simply did not exist.

Adding to this statement are the unresolved gratuities worth 31 per cent of health care workers' gross salaries and mounting strike threats from the health sector unions.

📰 Source: Kenyans.co.ke