Pay doctors for days on strike, orders Uhuru Kenyatta

President Uhuru Kenyatta has directed governors to pay doctors in public hospitals for the three months they were on strike, but warned that the doctors would be fired should they strike again.

Speaking in Kiambu County on Wednesday, the President said he had made the decision “for the sake of peace.”

“I know I had vowed not to pay these people for the days they were on strike. But for the sake of peace, I have asked governors to pay them so that we can all move on,” he said at Ndenderu and at Wangige Market where he had taken the Jubilee Party campaign, in the company of his deputy William Ruto.

But he warned that he will not be as forgiving next time doctors go on strike.

LIVES LOST

“We are saying it is okay, we will pay you, but we all know you will not return the lives of Kenyans that were lost during the strike.”

“But let me say this in front of this crowd, if you dare strike again, I swear, you will all lose your jobs and we will not be apologetic about it,” he said.

The Council of Governors that now manages a big chunk of the health service including paying doctors, had said it would not pay the doctors for the months they did not work.

The doctors welcomed the President’s directive. “On behalf of other doctors, we pledge to ensure industrial harmony in the healthcare and we will offer our dedicated service to Kenyans. We thank him again for understanding,” said the Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union secretary-general, Dr Ouma Oluga.

Dr Oluga thanked the President for “goodwill, tolerance and understanding” for asking counties to pay the doctors.

PLANNING STRIKE

Doctors in some counties in the central Kenya have been planning to go on strike over their pay. They are Nyeri, Tharaka Nithi, Embu and Laikipia counties.

The doctors in Nyeri were planning to start their strike today. The referral hospital is facing a crisis over a shortage of drugs and a breakdown of equipment.

Central region doctors’ union secretary-general Gor Goody insisted that the Nyeri hospital lacks diabetes and hypertension drugs and four out of the 10 renal and dialysis machines were not working.

“No one has notified me of any strike and any action they choose to take without following the right procedures will be sorted in a legal way,” said Nyeri health executive Charles Githinji.

HOSPITALS DESERTED

In Tharaka Nithi, all wards at the referral hospital are deserted due to a 45-day nurses strike. Governor Samuel Ragwa has dismissed 361 striking nurses seeking promotions, allowances and remittance of various statutory deductions.

He has accused the Kenya National Union of Nurses county branch leaders of being paid by his rivals to paralyse services.

Nearly 100 doctors from Laikipia County had had also planned to strike from today to protest the withholding of their January and February salaries, according to union branch secretary Davji Atella.

In Embu, doctors who have been struck off the payroll vowed to go to court.

Additional reporting by Eric Wainaina, Irene Mugo, Agnes Aboo, Barnabas Bii, Dennis Lubanga and Magdalene Wanja