Return to work in 24 hours or face the sack, striking doctors told
Striking doctors and interns outside Parliament Buildings in Nairobi on April 9, 2024.
What you need to know:
- Striking doctors told to return to the negotiation table in compliance with a court order.
- Doctors instructed to end strike before Whole of Nation Approach Committee convenes.
The government has said it will take disciplinary action on all striking doctors in the country if they fail to call off the strike within 24 hours.
The Head of Public Service Felix Koskei has further asked the medics to return to the negotiation table in compliance with a court order.
The ultimatum has been communicated to the Secretary-General of the Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union, Davji Atellah, in a confidential letter seen by Nation.Africa.
The letter has also instructed the doctors to call off the strike before the Whole of Nation Approach Committee convenes.
“Take note that the Committee shall reconvene within 24 hours of KMPDU suspension of the strike ensuring full compliance with the order of the Principal Judge Byram Ongaya, of the Employment and Labour Relations Court of Kenya,” the letter reads in part.
According to the Head of Public Service, the court mandated the Whole of the Nation Approach Committee with the mandate of resolving the instant long-running dispute in Kenya’s health sector and to achieve a sustainable solution to the ongoing negotiation and conciliation process yet the doctors have refused to call off the strike.
He also said the court set the suspension of the industrial action as the condition precedent for the resumption of the Whole of Nation Approach Committee meetings on the health sector.
On April 3, Justice Ongaya ruled that the doctors suspend the strike and ordered that the negotiations be completed within 14 days and that the parties report back to court by April 17.
“The strike notice remains suspended and the Whole of Nation Approach Committee to be completed in the next 14 days and the parties to report back in court,” Justice Ongaya said.
However, the doctors have maintained that are not going to be threatened or intimidated into calling off the strike.
“We are worried about the suspension and termination letters and withdrawal of paying union dues have to be avoided. When we are calling off the strike, there must be a return to work formula where the most important clause is always that there should be no victimisation. We find it a little bit hard to suspend a strike without goodwill from the government,” said Dennis Miskellah, the Deputy Secretary General of KMPDU.
“We cannot call off the strike. That would be very reckless on our side. Some negotiators will not turn up for the negotiations the moment they call off the strike,” he added.
“There is nowhere in the court stated that if the doctors fail to call off the strike then the negotiations should not continue. We are ready for negotiations and it’s the outcome of the talks that will inform our decision to suspend or continue with the strike,” Dr Miskellah explained.
“If they have never fulfilled previous commitments they made to doctors, why should we believe that calling off the strike will yield our demands? We are not being stubborn. We just have to be careful so that we are not left worse off than before the strike started,” he said.
Dr Miskellah also maintained that no amount of intimidation would make them change their stand on the strike.
“We are willing to go back to work, even as early as yesterday, but what is the bare minimum from the government? Doctors are ready to Engage, reach a consensus, and go back to work,” he said
He also faulted the Ministry of Health for publishing intern information, including names and identification numbers, as opposed to the Data Protection Act.
“They (the interns) will not pick the letters. Such intimidations will not work. If they want they could as well publish all the details of all doctors, but we will remain firm," he said.
Meanwhile, as result of the strike, which has been on for 28 days now, patients across the country continue suffering in silence.
A spot check by Nation.Africa painted a grim picture in public hospitals where with a few patients have been abandoned.
So dire is the situation that religious leaders have made an urgent appeal to the government to consider engaging the medics and end the stalemate.
The Council of Imams and Preachers of Kenya (CIPK) has underlined the need to consider some of the issues raised by doctors and other medical practitioners.
But President William Ruto has maintained that the government has no money to meet the doctors’ demands.
Governors, on the other hand, have indicated that will not be a party to the talks.
“Doctors in my county have never had a conversation with me. Why they are striking because interns, whom they do not even know, have not been posted baffles me," said Tharaka Nithi Governor Muthomi Njuki
Mr Njuki, who is also the Council of Governors Health Committee Chair, also sought to know how a union can purport to represent people who are not yet employed.
“I think there is more than meets the eye in this strike. I do not believe the doctors are genuine. There is something else beyond this strike,” he said.
