Agony for patients as doctors' strike bites

The KMPDU leadership says it will attend the meeting but will not agree to mediation as suggested by the ministry. The doctors are also demanding that the meeting finds ways of committing to pay them salary increment arrears for the last seven years. 

From the parking lot to the waiting bay, the emptiness tells of the picture of the impact of the ongoing doctors' strike, at least here in Nyamira County.

For the fourth day running, doctors have kept away from hospitals as they made good the threat to down their tools demanding that the government addresses their issues as contained in the collective bargaining agreement signed between the doctors and the government in 2017

The Ministry of Health has, in the midst of the strike, extended an olive branch to the doctors in the form of a mediation meeting scheduled for tomorrow.

The doctors say they will honour the meeting, but the agenda at least on their part, will not be mediation.

The doctors insist that they will accept nothing less than the immediate commencement of the posting of medical interns to health facilities. They say the interns should not only be posted but be well compensated for their labour.

The doctors went on strike on Thursday last week, demanding that the government post medical interns, remit payment for doctors taking postgraduate studies, pay the doctors' salary increment arrears dating back to 2017 and implement the 2017 Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) in full. 

The doctors have maintained that their industrial action will continue even as the talks kick off tomorrow, and have threatened to withdraw even the bare essential services that are currently being offered if the government does not heed and agree to their demands.