Comparative Analysis of The Covid-19 Impact on Labour-Related Laws of Kenya in The Health Sector

Abstract

The government of Kenya has struggled to address the emerging issues in the health sector during the COVID-19 pandemic. Various authors have highlighted that the COVID-19 pandemic, severely affected both the health care systems and the legal framework of labour-related laws in many jurisdictions, including Kenya which in turn exposed health care providers to work-related injuries. Notably, the government’s erratic and disorganized response hindered Kenya’s ability to deliver prompt, high quality healthcare throughout the pandemic. Putting it into perspective, the Kenyan government failed to supply adequate protective equipment, testing or other safety precautions necessary for an effective and safe response to the COVID-19 outbreak. This research seeks to conduct a legal analysis of how COVID-19 has affected labour-related laws in various jurisdictions, with particular focus on Kenya. Additionally, it seeks to provide recommendations to both national, regional and international health authorities on how to address the challenges faced by the Kenyan government in enforcing labour-related laws. To achieve this, the research will incorporate the use of a normative approach, which will assist in the collecting and delivering data mainly from secondary sources from national, regional and international health institutions and authorities. This approach will assist in making informed judgements, providing instructions to achieve the desire outcomes, explaining causality and defining the application of findings to the target population. Additionally, this study also intends to incorporate both comparative analysis of data obtained from other jurisdictions to provide a structured understanding of the topic by comparing and relating the labour-related laws in the selected jurisdictions to Kenya’s legal framework. In conclusion, this research intends to analyze the impact of COVID-19 on the implementation of labour-related laws in Kenya’s health sector and propose possible reforms to make these laws more adaptable to the emerging issues related to pandemics.