Kenyans may yet again celebrate Jamhuri Day with the health workforce staying put at home.
This is after talks to resolve the health workers' strike — that has now entered its fifth day — collapsed with no solution in sight.
The doctors had their own meetings from which they resolved to withdraw services from Kenyatta National Referral Hospital.
This as the nurses had a day-long meeting with representatives from both levels of government, and clinical officers staged a demonstration.
Doctors have accused the Government of bad faith following court summons on December 13, 2016.
Prior to this, the doctors had claimed that the Government was intimidating them during the talks. Their demands for the implementation of their collective bargaining agreement (CBA) are far from the Government's offer.
The doctors noted that this was an arbitrary increment that was baseless and, therefore, at risk of being withdrawn by the Government at will.
The doctors' mistrust is obvious, as they have numerous unimplemented return-to-work formulas (rtwf) from prior strikes and wanted to hear nothing about any 'rtwf'.
The two levels of government on the other hand have accused the doctors of being hardliners, unwilling to soften their stand to reach an amicable solution.
Sources have it that the Government's position is that the CBA cannot be implemented as it is. The Government's headache therefore is getting out of this quagmire without digging deeper into the coffers.
The situation is bound to escalate to unfathomable levels if the one-day boycott of provision of services in all private facilities and mission hospitals on December 13 comes to pass.
Private facilities however say their doctors will not abandon their jobs to join their colleagues.
