Talks fail to end doctors’ strike
A student nurse attends to a patient at the Coast General Hospital in Mombasa on September 27, 2012 as the doctors’ strike continued. Photo/LABAN WALLOGA
What you need to know:
What workers are pushing for
- Implementation of the Musyimi taskforce report on improvement of infrastructure.
- Medical Services ministry to explain whereabouts of Sh200 million post-graduate fees released by Treasury for their training.
- Reinstatement of 393 striking trainee doctors who were suspended for demanding payment of a Sh92,000 monthly stipend at KNH and Mathare Hospitals.
The strike by doctors in public hospitals continued on Thursday, even as Medical Services Minister Anyang’ Nyong’o met union officials to end the stalemate. Read (Govt to employ 2,000 doctors, says minister)
The Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union chairman, Dr Victor Ng’ani, said the talks had “opened a window of opportunity” in ending the strike, which has paralysed services and affected patients seeking treatment in the hospitals.
“Although we are still far apart (in reaching consensus), the union believes that a solution will be soon found to end the strike,” the union boss said.
Salaries stopped
Dr Ng’ani said Prof Nyong’o had asked his officials to attend a closed-door meeting at Nairobi’s Hotel InterContinental.
The minister later inaugurated the new National Hospital Insurance Fund board.
The meeting comes barely 48 hours after Prof Nyong’o announced that all doctors on strike had been sacked after their salaries were stopped two days earlier.
He had also said that the government was in the process of hiring 1,000 doctors and 1,000 clinical officers to replace those on strike.
On Thursday, speaking during a special delegates meeting convened by the union at Charter Hall in Nairobi, the organisation’s secretary-general, Dr Were Onyoni, said the government had withdrawn plans to sack the striking doctors or withhold their salaries.
Dr Onyoni said the government would also withdraw adverts for jobs for doctors that had appeared in some newspapers on Thursday as the talks between the union and the ministry continued.
He said that newly-hired doctors would now be in job group ‘N’, up from the previous entry point of job group ‘L’.
Dr Onyoni said that the salaries of doctors would also be harmonised to be at par with those of other civil servants.
A senior Kenya Medical Association consultant, Dr Lukoye Atwoli, praised the minister for “coming down to hold talks with the striking doctors”, saying an agreement to end the strike was in sight.
