Talks put off as State faces wrath of House

An MP on Thursday accused the government of treating striking doctors in a callous manner even as talks were postponed to Friday.

Mr Kambi Kazungu, the assistant minister of Medical Services, told the House doctors booed him when he offered them a deal giving the highest paid doctor an extra Sh40,000.

The assistant minister blamed the Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union for the stalled talks.

Dr Boni Khalwale, who in solidarity with the medics, had a blue ribbon on his lapel, said that Mr Kazungu’s ”combative mood shows that doctors are up against a hard rock. He has exposed the callous nature of the ministry,” he said.

Mr Kazungu told Parliament according to the Abuja Declaration of allocating 15 per cent allocation of the national budget to health will be met in the next budget. It is now at seven per cent.

He described the torrential brain-drain of doctors as being fuelled by parallel students in the universities and their “rich backgrounds”

“They only stay as long as is necessary to complete internship,” he said.

Elsewhere, the union’s secretary-general Boniface Chitayi said the ministry gave no reason for the postponement.

On Wednesday, the government increased doctors’ allowances from Sh1.35 billion to Sh1.9 billion for the first phase and Sh5.2 billion for the second one.

It also agreed to allocate Sh80 billion for upgrading health facilities and build new ones over 10 years, approved Sh200 million for training health workers and another Sh113 million for delayed promotion.

It also released the salaries for the 95 doctors which had been stopped.

But the union said this fell short of their demands.

“The hiring of 200 medical officers is welcome but too little because over the last year, we have lost 600 doctors,” said Dr Chitayi.

“There is still a long distance to cover,” he said. The doctors key demands are a 300 per cent pay rise and allocating at least 10 per cent of the budget to healthcare.