Story highlights 61 patients from Kenya's largest mental facility escaped the hospital grounds

Medical workers in Kenya began strike action on Monday over pay

More than 24 hours later, just five of missing patients had been found.

(CNN) If doctors in Kenya were looking for a way to show their value -- it couldn't have come clearer.

Hours after medical workers', strike began on Monday, 61 patients from the country's largest mental facility escaped the hospital grounds, climbing an exterior wall and wandering across the Kenyan capital.

"After giving treatment and going to the other wards the patients were left unattended and they climbed the wall and wandered away from the hospital," said Julius Ogato, Medical Superintendent of Mathari National Teaching and Referral Hospital.

More than 24 hours later, just five of the missing patients had been found.

video shared by a local newspaper shows the time of escape as some patients casually walk, and others run away in their hospital clothing. The facility held more than 750 patients at the time and only five nurses out of 195 person nursing staff had showed up to work that day.

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