Doctors to start strike in defiance of court order

Nearly 5,000 doctors across the country are set to begin their strike on Monday in defiance of a temporary order by the Employment and Labour Relations Court on Friday stopping their industrial action.

They will this morning meet at the Public Service Club in Upper Hill, Nairobi, to commence the strike.

Dr Ouma Oluga, the Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union (KMPPDU) secretary-general, said doctors will not resume work until the government meets their demands contained in a July 2013 Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA).

As the strike commences, the Council of Governors (CoG) will be holding an “urgent meeting” in Westlands, Nairobi, that will, among other things, “address the concerns raised by the health workers’ union”.

In a letter by Kisii Governor James Ongwae, chairman of the Human Resource Committee at CoG, the governors are asked to “familiarise themselves with the collective bargaining agreement for the nurses and the doctors” beforehand.

Expected to attend are representatives from the Ministry of Health, Salaries Review Commission (SRC), trade union members, county secretaries and chairpersons of the County Public Service Boards.

CoG sued to block the strike, which, it is feared, will paralyse services at nearly 2,700 public health facilities — including Kenyatta National Hospital and Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital, where most Kenyans seek emergency medical care.

PRIVATE HOSPITALS

The union said its members would proceed with the strike as they “have not seen or received such an order” and have advised Kenyans to seek medical services, particularly emergency care, at private hospitals.

The strike also comes despite numerous pleas by Health Cabinet Secretary Cleopa Mailu, calling on the health workers to give negotiations a chance to iron out the issues and arguing that it will “reverse the gains made in the health sector”.

The contentious CBA between the ministry and the union covered a spectrum of issues such as a review of job groups, promotions, deployment and transfer of medical officers, and remuneration.

In particular, it directly addressed understaffing, with the ministry asked to hire at least 1,200 doctors yearly over the next four years to reduce the doctor-patient ratio. There is one doctor for at least 16,000 Kenyans.

“We are fighting for wananchi because the agreement will see the number of doctors increase and that they are better trained,” said Dr Oluga. “We have been lenient with our demands.”

He said according to the agreement, the basic salaries of the lowest-paid doctor should increase from Sh35,000 to Sh107,000, and Sh109,000 to nearly Sh378,000 for the highest-earning. Doctors based in rural areas, according to the union, will earn more.

'SH8.13 BILLION'

Dr Oluga added: “It would cost the government about Sh8.13 billion annually in arrears to achieve our demands. We know the government has the money, and it pains us to know some of this money is being lost through corruption.”

A 21-day strike notice issued by the doctors on November 14 lapses on Monday.

Dr Mailu said the ministry was keen to end the stalemate. He said it had convened a negotiation team of stakeholders — including governors, the Attorney-General, the SRC and the National Treasury — to resolve the dispute.

The talks between the union and the various stakeholders began two days after the union issued the strike notice.

According to Dr Mailu, that should have ended by the end of December as per a court ruling of October 6 that required the two sides to sort out their concerns.

The minister, however, claimed that, while his team was ready to meet, the union was acting in “bad faith” by calling the strike and “adjournment of meetings purportedly to consult” as the date of the strike drew closer.

Doctors have come up with a rallying call in the form of a hash tag, #LipaKamaTender — implying that their agreed dues should be paid as quickly and as easily as government tenders are settled.

'THREE YEARS'

In correspondence from the union to Head of Public Service Joseph Kinyua seen by the Nation, the doctors say they have “engaged county governments for more than three years to sign recognition agreements and thus adopt the CBA … prior to doctors’ transfer to the counties”.

The union says it has been “extremely frustrated” and moved to the Employment and Labour Relations Court in 2015 to seek redress.

“Having waited patiently for three years, followed the full letter of the law and having borne the frustration of the public sector, doctors working in extremely dire terms and conditions, poor pay and severe shortages … we declare we have exhausted all mechanisms available for CBA bargaining under the Constitution of Kenya,” said the letter to Mr Kinyua.

The mass strike follows a series of others in the past few months in Nairobi, Migori and Kiambu that have seen more than 600 doctors down their tools to demand better working conditions, better pay and promotions and, in some counties such as Nairobi, appointment letters.

Persistent strikes by health workers have become a dark cloud over health services. In an interview with the Nation in October, a senior ministry official said there was a need to “rethink” whether trade unions for health workers — which have been known to call strikes to demand better terms — are doing more harm than good”.