Role of Remuneration Practices on the Retention of Employees in Public Health Institutions in Machakos County, Kenya

Abstract

Health workers are vitally important for the effective functioning of healthcare systems. The aim of this study was to explore the role of remuneration practices on the retention of health care staff in public health care institutions in Machakos county in Kenya. The study adopted a mixed research design and targeted all the 772 health care staff in the 156 public health facilities in the eight sub-counties in the county which consists of one level five hospital, four level four hospitals while the rest are health centers and dispensaries. The population was stratified into 8 main strata consisting of doctors, dentists, clinical officers, nurses, physiotherapists, pharmacists, laboratory technicians and radiographers. Stratified random and purposive sampling was used to select a total of 263 respondents from the various strata identified. Simple random sampling was used to select the medical doctors, clinical officers, nurses and laboratory technicians while convenience and purposive sampling, nonprobability methods were used to identify the dentists, pharmacists radiographers, physiotherapists and orthopedic technologists. Interviews were used to collect data from the officers in charge of sub county facilities and the four hospitals while self-administered questionnaires were used on the rest of the respondents. The finding was that there was weak but statistically significant positive relationship between remuneration practices and retention of health care staff in public health care institutions in Machakos county in Kenya..