KMPDU dismisses report that doctors are earning salaries without working as ‘witch-hunt’

The Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union (KMPDU) has responded to a viral article published in one of the local dailies shining the spotlight on the rot in public hospitals.

The investigative piece sought to disclose how a number of specialist doctors are allegedly pocketing huge pays despite not actually showing up to the public hospitals where they’re attached, but rather focusing on their own private practices.

KMPDU, in a statement to newsrooms on Monday signed by Secretary General Dr. Davji Atellah, cited what it said were a number of fundamental errors in the piece, brushing it off as mere witch-hunt.

Dr. Atellah, while acknowledging the part the article played in sensitizing the general public as a positive thing, however seemingly intimated that it was not well researched.

The KMPDU boss stated that it is not a crime for doctors to run their own private businesses, further hitting out at the media house for what he termed as an attempt to criminalize the whole profession.

“For the record, the union does sympathize with the author of the article but takes great exception with its general dalliance with ignorance. Doctors are not the only civil servants who engage in private practice. In fact, there is no law in Kenya today that bars any civil servant from engaging in private enterprise,” said Dr. Atellah.

“Trying to selectively criminalize it for the doctors must be one of the most inhuman and calculated attempts to kill a dog by first giving it a bad name. The doctors have been branded as rabid dogs by this story and a case made for their bludgeoning to death without being heard.”

Dr. Atellah also sought to issue a clarification on doctors’ working hours, stating that they do not necessarily follow the normal 8am to 5pm schedule as they work odd shifts.

This, he said, is even made worse going by massive understaffing in public hospitals, which he added has led to certain medics not being able to take leave over the years.

“While the story by the media house has elaborated the perceived injustice that the doctors are meting out on the innocent public, some of which may be true or otherwise, the media house has chosen to deliberately silence or pull under the carpet the plight of the doctor,” he wrote.

“One would have expected that the vigour and commitment with which the transgression of the doctor is being reported could have also been employed to illustrate the systemic failures that is frustrating our doctors at the workplace.”

Dr. Atellah cited such frustrations as doctors not being paid by a number of county governments, sometimes even summarily dismissed as was the case with the past Laikipia County government administration.

“The story by the media house describes doctors’ salaries as hefty. This has shocked the KMPDU. The union is out here agitating to have the government commit to a Collective Bargain Agreement, CBA for the cycle 2021-2025. It is instructive to note that State agencies inlucing the Salaries and Remuneration Commission, SRC have studiously blocked any attempts for a CBA to be concluded,” he added.