Roundup: Kenyan medics' refusal to resume duty escalates health crises

Kenya's health sector is grappling with unprecedented crises as medical personnel continued to defy a state directive to resume duty.

As Kenyans geared up for the Christmas holiday, there was little hope that the doctors' strike that started on Dec. 5 would end despite the suffering it had caused.

More than 5,000 medics working in public health facilities downed their tools over failure by the state to implement a 300-percent salary hike agreed in mid 2013.

The Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA), signed by health workers' unions and the government, stated that the lowest paid doctor would earn 3,250 U.S. dollars up from 1,028 dollars monthly while the highest paid doctor would earn 8,050 dollars up from 3,030 dollars.

However, delay in the implementation of the CBA prompted the health workers' unions to call for a strike that has since early December paralyzed operations in public hospitals.

So far, more than 20 Kenyans have died during the ongoing doctors' strike while frantic efforts by the state to end the impasse have borne minimal fruits.

There was light at the end of the tunnel mid this month when the nurses' union called off the strike after the government promised to honor the salary deal.

Meanwhile, doctors, specialists and clinical officers vowed to keep off their work stations until their demands for better remuneration and other incentives were met.

Medics working in a Nairobi private hospital entered the fray on Thursday when they announced their intention to down tools in solidarity with their colleagues in the public sector.

While doctors' strikes are not new in Kenya, the latest one is unprecedented in terms of duration and the suffering it has caused.

Gory images of abandoned patients left to their own devices as the strike progressed forced Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta to make an impassioned appeal to medics to resume duty.

During his address to the nation on Independence Day, Kenyatta appealed to the doctors to call off their strike in order to save lives of Kenyans neglected in public hospitals.

Kenyatta said his government was committed to improving working conditions of medical personnel in line with global best practices.

The medics have nevertheless defied presidential intervention and have vowed not to report to duty until the comprehensive bargaining agreement of 2013 is implemented in full.

Concerned by paralysis in public health facilities, Kenya was recently forced to deploy military doctors at referral hospitals to treat patients with severe ailments.

Many public hospital patients have also been forced to seek medical attention in private hospitals that charge higher fees.

Negotiations between the ministry of health and medics unions to end the strike have collapsed due to hard-line positions taken by both parties.

Recently, the ministry of health and council of governors filed a case against health workers' unions for failure to end the strike that has entered the third week.

A judge at the labor relations court said in his ruling the doctors' strike was illegal and ordered arrest of the union bosses for defying a state directive to resume work.

Kenyans' hope for an end to the paralysis in the health sector was dashed again early this week when talks between medics' unions and the ministry of health collapsed.

The protagonists have not given the Kenyan public any reason to cheer as brinkmanship undermines the possibility of a truce that would end paralysis in the health sector. Endit