Doctors agree with governors, Health ministry to end strike

End of Doctors strike ?

Doctors, the Health ministry and governors have reached an agreement on documents that were hindering an end the medics’ 100-day strike.

Lawyers for the Council of Governors and the Health ministry on Tuesday told judges that they would file their pact on a joint return-to-work formula in the appeals court by midday.

NO ISSUES

Doctors filed the draft return-to-work formula in court on Monday but they government was yet to agree to it.

Lawyer Waigi Kamau for the ministry told judges Hannah Okwengu, Martha Koome and Jamilla Mohammed that the government was in the process of finalising a joint return-to-work formula.

Mr Kamau said the government had no issues with the draft presented by doctors, and that the joint one would be filed once all parties sign it.

The judges congratulated the parties for reaching an agreement on the document that has seen paralysis persist in public hospitals.

PRIVATE PRACTICE

In the document filed in court on Monday, doctors removed a contentious clause barring them from private practice in a document filed in court yesterday.

The doctors version of the return-to-work formula (RTWF) struck off the clause, which reads: “All medical doctors, pharmacists and dentists shall strictly adhere to their terms of employment in regard to engaging directly or indirectly in any other gainful employment and/or private practice as a partner, employee, consultant, director, manager, agent, associate or otherwise.”

3 MONTHS

They also want the government to be compelled by law to pay them the three months salaries and arrears since December 5 last year, when they went on strike.

The three parties are racing against time to end the industrial action that has hit poor Kenyans the hardest after the appellate court threatened to return the case to the Employment and Labour Relations Court.

On Monday, the judges sternly pointed out that the real issues that forced the doctors to go on strike had not been resolved and asked parties to help end the suffering of patients.