Kenya Medical Practitioners Pharmacists Dentists Union(KMPDU) secretary general Davji Bhimji Atellah has announced the doctor’s strike starting Monday, saying talks with the government had collapsed.
Further, he noted that he had told all the intern doctors not to work on Monday but instead travel to Nairobi for Tuesday’s union meeting at Ufungamano House.
He said the Ufungamano meeting will declare that the industrial action will accelerate “until the doctors get their rights, which is posting and payment.
“About 1,000 doctors are travelling to be in the meeting on Tuesday. These are interns who run services at the public facilities. So, we are effectively downing tools starting Monday,” he said.
Doctors announced in October last year that if the state did not carry out the commitments in the CBA for 2017–21, they would begin a strike on January 6.
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But when the government began working with them, the action was dropped.
The development of a roadmap for paying the interns whose salaries are currently 90 days overdue was agreed upon using a conversational approach.
In 12 counties last month, KMPDU once more joined other medical professionals in issuing strike notices, including nurses, clinical officers, and pharmacists.
However, Atellah claimed in the most recent letter to senior government figures, which the Star saw, that the union's interactions and discussions with the appropriate government officials have produced little because the intern doctors are still unpaid and unemployed.
“Our position is that the conciliations have completely failed to yield any results thus far, it is therefore untenable and a waste of resource,” the letter reads.
“Unless a case is presented for our continued participation in the process, we shall consider the dispute unresolved under section 69 and move that our industrial action be sanctioned by the court order in Nairobi ELRC 6464 of 2020,” adds.
